We appear to know the numerator. For those who have a BA degree or who are in the media, that is the top number in the ratio, the fraction, oh whatever!
Then we need to know the denominator. That again is the bottom number. Now recall that the number is the total number infected. Well how do we get that? Simple, kind of. One must sample a large random population, say thousands of people, to get a reasonable number. And one must do that daily for some period knowing the temporal dynamics of the mortality and morbidity. Are we doing that? No way. In fact the system established prevents that very critical set of information.
Now recall we mentioned six weeks ago when we started commenting on this that RNA identification is trivial. However the Federal regulations prohibited third year Biology students from doing this even though it was part of their weekly labs. The CDC Government employees said only then could decide. Think Medicare for All!
Now it seems that we finally can do what we should be doing. BUT! Why not random testing of say a thousand or so per day? Public Health centers a century ago did this. Yes we closed them all down, but why not open them up again? For example, some sixty years or so ago one need a TB test as part of employment. I recall needing one to get my working papers as a Lifeguard in the 1950s. What happened? HIPPA and a multiplicity of Government regulations as well as a complete demolition of Public Health systems. New York at one time had a good one, if not the best, in the world. With all the immigrants the possibility of the introduction of new diseases was significant. However as things evolved it was easy to cut costs on Public Health, push it off to the hospital ERs. Below is my NYC Public Health card. It really worked then.
To understand the spread one must have data. We do not have data. When we see 3% mortality we really mean 3% die who have a severe recognizable and isolateable infection. That folks is not the mortality rate, it is another rate, mortality amongst those infected. We still have no clue on the denominator. Yet it is so easy to do. Just do it! Bu alas it is an election year and we all seem to find the advantage of collapsing the economy based upon zero data!
Oh and BTW, read the NY Times piece on Patient Zero in New York. This all seems to have happened a whole month after the official announcement of the virus as a putative pandemic, and a month after we had marked it as such in this blog.
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