Quote Originally Posted by Rover View Post
The narrative is that you don’t control a pandemic by ignoring it exists. This idea that if you stick your head in the sand and if you don’t know how bad it really is, then it isn’t bad at all, is a fast leap off a tall cliff. Maybe we could make it go away by just not testing at all and reclassifying the deaths and hospital stays.

Since when is reality and truth a “narrative”?
NO!!! Our daily numbers are NOT truth!! They are a representation of cause and effect. We test more, and the daily rates go up. People around here cling to the daily rates of infection and act like the world is ending; yet, this is the least diagnostic number for what is really happening right now. Want a good diagnostic tool? Look at the R numbers for the states. Look at the percent positive rates. Are they going up and down?

Anytime somebody questions the validity in our daily ramblings around the case numbers, they are obliterated as trying to dismiss this virus. Nothing can be further from the truth. We’re simply pointing out that it’s flawed analysis when the reality is there is likely far more cases than what has been represented. Caution must be taken when comparing directly to our peers in other states when looking purely at daily case rates because of these issues. Yet here we are: “Oklahoma is top 10 in daily case numbers blah blah blah. We’re terrible. The world is ending here.” The reality is that we are no worse or better than our peers. The entire US is failing miserably at containment, but you will never know it given the bias in testing.