COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US)
The percentage increase in detected cases may or may not be indicative of testing rates. Meaning that two states could have similar numbers of detected cases but may have a large difference in testing rate. I just wonder how consistent testing criteria are from state to state, or even from hospital to hospital. Maybe a a matrix of several variables might give us a bit more useful info.
Not to say his data isn't useful, but I think there's more going on than what we see here. Just a thought.
again, this points to why I did not automatically think Silver was being 'divisive' in his tweet.
We've been talking about this general thing in this thread. More testing will mean: (1) more positive, confirmed, overall cases and (2) a lower percentage of actual infection and confirmed cases.
Correct? I mean, that tended to be the conclusion most people have been drawing - and not just for the US. It's been going on for a while.
So, if we assume that the statistics are going to be equitable - I mean, Booker replied saying this:
Yeah, I don't think the virus checks for political affiliation.
I mean, that's exactly the point. Incidence of virus is going to be stable across the general population - eventually, once we reach a critical mass.
And so, if you have a region that is reporting something statistically awry, then that's related - at least in large part - to testing.
And if we have been talking about the importance of testing, this sort of data is important to have.
If we are going to hold Silver's tweet up to the "there's more to the story" scrutiny, that's fine. But we should be applying it to all reported data - that just hasn't been entirely the case. As a result, I felt like the conclusion of testing frequency related to reporting of numbers was material, since we've been doing it.
I didn't think Silver was making the case that the virus knows politics.
Like I said, I didn't see what was offensive about it when I posted it - or I wouldn't have. And I've since taken it down and tried to explain where I'm coming from with how this data breakdown - which was mentioned in the original response I quoted - means something relevant to what we are discussing.