Covid-19 in OKC (coronavirus)

[Snowman]

Unless I misunderstand, these rapid tests haven't been included into our daily totals to date. If you suddenly add them, then your daily case line will shift up dramatically. It makes it really difficult to determine whether we are continuing to climb, plateauing, or coming down. If you can add them in retroactively, then no big deal.

You also have the issues of false positives from those tests.

The graphs they have been producing for their site had already being sorted by 'date of onset' and 'date reported' respectively, which seems like should be something new collection methods should be able to be fit into nicely.

[Bill Robertson]

The graphs they have been producing for their site had already being sorted by 'date of onset' and 'date reported' respectively, which seems like should be something new collection methods should be able to be fit into nicely.

The questions would be. Did anyone keep real records of rapid tests anywhere. And since the reason for not including them, from what I understand, is that until recently they were considered pretty inaccurate should they be added retroactively. So if the report I saw is true test results and trends have got to be “Before reporting rapid tests” and “After reporting rapid tests” .

[Pete]

The U.S. has now passed 150,000 deaths due to Covid-19.

[kukblue1]

I never really understood why the rapid test were not being counted? Too many false positives? I don't think it's much higher than the nose swab is it? Also when you see 1,400 some cases for today we really have no clue to when those cases actually were. Some were a couple days ago some were over a week ago. Who knows. This is why it will take at least another week to see if mask are helping at all.

[Bill Robertson]

Here’s a screenshot of the post I read.

[FighttheGoodFight]

Reading an exchange on Twitter with COVID health reporters they bring up a good point. Just looking at cases presents a problem in the fact that there is a backup log of tests to be processed and sometimes you have too many backlogged to get a good number.

Looking at hospitalizations can be a better data point as those tend to not lag on who is currently in the hospital. As those go up you really get a picture of how many people have this virus. If the hospitalization number is up then there is a high spread.

[Pete]

^

But hospitalizations are a lagging indicator.

They only manifest a week or two after a positive case.

And the # of new cases has been an accurate indicator of future hospitalization and deaths.


This is important when trying to get out ahead of things, rather than waiting for a bunch of people to die before making changes.

[Martin]

The U.S. has now passed 150,000 deaths due to Covid-19.

i'm trying to remember... did we hit 100k at the beginning of july or the beginning of june? either way, not good.

[Bill Robertson]

^

But hospitalizations are a lagging indicator.

They only manifest a week or two after a positive case.

And the # of new cases has been an accurate indicator of future hospitalization and deaths.


This is important when trying to get out ahead of things, rather than waiting for a bunch of people to die before making changes.

I kind of see what I think the point of FightTheGoodFight’s post. If you contract the thing, and say five days later you start showing symptoms and go get tested. I would think it’s then possible or probable that if the test results take 14 to 21 days then if you’re going to be hospitalized you’re probably there before the test results are recorded.

[Timshel]

^

They only manifest a week or two after a positive case.

While in a perfect world I would completely agree, these days I would say "only manifest a week or two after contracting the virus" (and that may have been what you meant). There's a growing amount of anecdotal evidence that people aren't receiving test results until 1, 2, even 3 weeks after being tested (and I am assuming the reporting happens contemporaneous with or after results are received by the patient). To the extent this is widespread (I have no hard numbers either way), hospitalizations may be just as timely of a figure as positive test results, as people are going to the hospital when they need to go to the hospital, not only after they've received a positive result.

And I think this entire discussion just go to show how difficult drawing any simple but accurate conclusions is when you're dealing with (in some cases, severely) flawed data and the importance of a reliable testing and reporting infrastructure. The ship has of course sailed on this pandemic, but hopefully we will be better in the future (though I'm not counting on it).

[Pete]

Frankly, I think this is a case of the pursuit of great information at the expense of good info.

No matter if case data is delayed or combined with rapid tests, or how they report hospitalizations or deaths, these numbers are all way, way higher than anywhere else has ever been and lots of people are getting very sick and way too many are dying.

[jedicurt]

Unless I misunderstand, these rapid tests haven't been included into our daily totals to date. If you suddenly add them, then your daily case line will shift up dramatically. It makes it really difficult to determine whether we are continuing to climb, plateauing, or coming down. If you can add them in retroactively, then no big deal.

You also have the issues of false positives from those tests.

right... but won't it lower numbers of the next few days and then literally have sorted itself out in 7 days??? it's really not a big deal

[soonerguru]

Oklahoma County led the way in new cases last week, by a significant number. We have now regained our pole position vis a vis Tulsa County, not by cases per capita, but by total cases.

Our county is not alone. The Darwin theory is going to play itself out, but there will be some terrible collateral damage affecting people who are forced to encounter the unmasked. This story about a young woman who works in a grocery makes me sick, and is a reminder of the degree of delustional, even sociopathic, selfishness the anti-maskers represent.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/u...ton-masks.html

[soonerguru]

Unless I misunderstand, these rapid tests haven't been included into our daily totals to date. If you suddenly add them, then your daily case line will shift up dramatically. It makes it really difficult to determine whether we are continuing to climb, plateauing, or coming down. If you can add them in retroactively, then no big deal.

You also have the issues of false positives from those tests.

False positives? I thought the inaccuracy was up to 50% false negatives, not positives.

[C_M_25]

False positives? I thought the inaccuracy was up to 50% false negatives, not positives.

Yes, these can give false positives.

Regardless, they’re inaccurate tests and including them in our metrics only convolutes the story that we’re all trying to unravel.

OSDH: “we’re currently having data quality issues with our current test counts. Let’s add even more unreliable data to the mix so the story will be so confusing that it will be impossible to understand. Then we can just blame all these issues on test reliability as opposed to our inept system.”

[kukblue1]

Is it time to go back and start testing people only with symptoms for a little bit so we can get caught up. I know asymptomatic people can spread it but are they reallying staying home for 7 days waiting for a test result if they are showing no symptoms? I also know a few people that are getting test pretty much every other day cause they are working in the public and they are scared they have it. I'm also know others getting test cause it's free and hey why not just to be safe. We have as of Friday 573,185 total tested that is a lot of test coming back negative and slowing down the system. Let's face it contract tracing at this point is way to difficult. Might be easier to trace people with symptoms with positive results coming back within 2 days just to start. There has to be a better way then what is going on now.

[Anonymous.]

There are false positives happening for sure. I know of a clinic here in OKC that has even done their own test by sending in samples that have been unused on anyone/thing and they are coming back as positives.

There is no doubt that cases are rising, but the data is definitely rocky.

[Libbymin]

The U.S. has now passed 150,000 deaths due to Covid-19.

It's important to step back every now and then and realize how far we've come in such a short amount of time. We started hearing about this virus at the end of last year. At the time, it seemed like such a remote thing to most people here. If you were to tell me back in January that 150,000 Americans would die in the US, I would've said to put that pipe down but here we are.

Just an absolutely staggering number and shameful that we were so ill-prepared for this. And we're not even close to being done with this thing...

[FighttheGoodFight]

It's important to step back every now and then and realize how far we've come in such a short amount of time. We started hearing about this virus at the end of last year. At the time, it seemed like such a remote thing to most people here. If you were to tell me back in January that 150,000 Americans would die in the US, I would've said to put that pipe down but here we are.

Just an absolutely staggering number and shameful that we were so ill-prepared for this. And we're not even close to being done with this thing...

And we will deal with the repercussions for 10 years after. It is one of those sobering moments you realize you are living during a huge worldwide history lesson in the future.

[LocoAko]

I know of a clinic here in OKC that has even done their own test by sending in samples that have been unused on anyone/thing and they are coming back as positives.

Uh... is this not highly unethical, if not malpractice of some sort?

[Anonymous.]

Uh... is this not highly unethical, if not malpractice of some sort?

No idea, but they have reported the issues to the state HD. I am sure it is a major cluster F in those offices, though.

[BDP]

Is it time to go back and start testing people only with symptoms for a little bit so we can get caught up. I know asymptomatic people can spread it but are they reallying staying home for 7 days waiting for a test result if they are showing no symptoms? I also know a few people that are getting test pretty much every other day cause they are working in the public and they are scared they have it. I'm also know others getting test cause it's free and hey why not just to be safe. We have as of Friday 573,185 total tested that is a lot of test coming back negative and slowing down the system. Let's face it contract tracing at this point is way to difficult. Might be easier to trace people with symptoms with positive results coming back within 2 days just to start. There has to be a better way then what is going on now.

Actually, it would probably make more sense to treat symptomatic people as assumed positive, have them quarantine, and use testing to find asymptomatic contagious people, because that's the only way they can be identified for isolation. We clearly don't have the capacity or maybe even the technology to effectively do that, at this point, but it would certainly contribute more to controlling the spread than would simply identifying already sick people as COVID positive. The reality is that once someone becomes symptomatic, they have most likely already contributed to the spread.

This is why some medical professionals advocate using the rapid tests, even with the high false negative problem. It seems the false negatives are generally due to a low viral load, which means still infected, but presumably not as contagious. But if the tests are able to cheaply and rapidly identify the more contagious asymptomatic spreaders, then the tests would still be an extremely useful tool in mitigating the spread, even with the false negative problem. Any false positives are really more of an inconvenience for the testee, than a hindrance to containing the virus.

That may not result in data that accurately tells the whole story, but, especially right now, the main objective and focus of testing should be containment and it's become clear that the main obstacle to containing this thing has been an inadequate testing infrastructure that has been unable to identify the contagious before they infect numerous people.

[d-usa]

I never really understood why the rapid test were not being counted? Too many false positives? I don't think it's much higher than the nose swab is it? Also when you see 1,400 some cases for today we really have no clue to when those cases actually were. Some were a couple days ago some were over a week ago. Who knows. This is why it will take at least another week to see if mask are helping at all.

Rapid tests have no real problem with false positives. The false negative rate is higher than laboratory tests, but the positives are pretty accurate and no different the laboratory tests.

The reason the state doesn’t count them is because they are not “laboratory confirmed”. There is no real reason to think that a positive rapid test isn’t accurate, so nobody is going to go through the work of confirming a rapid test at a laboratory. That would take twice as many testing supplies, and it would increase the strain on the laboratories.

I don’t think the state approaches CLIA-waived flu tests the same way, but for some reason they have decided to not count CLIA-waived SARS-CoV-2 tests.

Of course they also simply stop counting active cases after 14 days if they aren’t dead or hospitalized, so there is that.

[TheTravellers]

Uh... is this not highly unethical, if not malpractice of some sort?

How/why would it be? Just call it "the control group". Absolutely ridiculous that completely unused samples are coming back positive - someone, somewhere at a high level at the lab that's sending out those positive results needs to fix things at that lab *now*.

[kukblue1]

Actually, it would probably make more sense to treat symptomatic people as assumed positive, have them quarantine, and use testing to find asymptomatic contagious people, because that's the only way they can be identified for isolation. We clearly don't have the capacity or maybe even the technology to effectively do that, at this point, but it would certainly contribute more to controlling the spread than would simply identifying already sick people as COVID positive. The reality is that once someone becomes symptomatic, they have most likely already contributed to the spread.

This is why some medical professionals advocate using the rapid tests, even with the high false negative problem. It seems the false negatives are generally due to a low viral load, which means still infected, but presumably not as contagious. But if the tests are able to cheaply and rapidly identify the more contagious asymptomatic spreaders, then the tests would still be an extremely useful tool in mitigating the spread, even with the false negative problem. Any false positives are really more of an inconvenience for the testee, than a hindrance to containing the virus.

That may not result in data that accurately tells the whole story, but, especially right now, the main objective and focus of testing should be containment and it's become clear that the main obstacle to containing this thing has been an inadequate testing infrastructure that has been unable to identify the contagious before they infect numerous people.

I see your point here. With it not being flu season if they have a fever, coughing, low oxygen or something lets just treat them like they have covid and save the test.
We are now 4 months into this you think by now there would be a spit test or a blood test or something that would have a quicker turn around time.