gbaji wrote:
[Then when the rational people on the Right mentioned that this was to be expected since you increased the testing ten fold and argued that we should use percent positive of the tests, suddenly testing labs started only reporting positive cases, which skewed those numbers (and was broadly reported, the skewed numbers, not the fact that they were skewed).
Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
and argued that we should use percent positive of the tests
So...you are arguing that measuring the PERCENTAGE rate among the testing is somehow irrelevant?
It's always baffling to me when people quote a portion of a sentence I wrote and the respond to it as though I meant something completely different than what I actually wrote.
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I'm willing too bet if the percentage rate was incredibly low, you'd count it as a win. So, why decry it?
No. My point was that when the total number of confirmed cases went up, it was right at the same time that Florida embarked on a massive increase in testing. Which is exactly what you'd expect, but the media reported it was some kind of indication of a massive increase in the spread of covid there. When folks on the Right (that includes me) pointed out that if you do 5x the amount of testing per week this month than you did last month, you should expect to see 5x the number of cases, even if the actual rate of infection remains exactly the same. Of course, that didn't undo the mass of incorrect and alarmist reporting that had already happened.
Folks on the Right demanded that we should be reporting the percentage of positive cases as well as the numbers, so as to allow data to actually determine some degree of actual infection rate. The interesting thing is that those percentages came up really high. Suspiciously high. Of course, the mainstream media just reported the high numbers and congratulated themselves on having correctly blamed Florida and its GOP governor for spreading the virus around. Once again though conservative journalists investigated and found that a number of labs and hospitals were reporting 100% positive test rates, which clearly could not be correct.
Turns out that many of these labs decided that only positive cases mattered, so they only reported those numbers and chucked out the data for everything else. Which is what I was referring to as the skewed statistics. And, once again, while the media jumped on the initial incorrect numbers, they were largely silent when it came to reporting that those numbers were incorrect.
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Oh, right. Fascist.
Deliberately inflating some danger in order to scare the heck out of your population in order to get them to hand the government increasing power over where and when they can travel, what types of businesses they can operate, who they can freely associate with, and even what they must do just to walk outside their front doors is kinda fascist. Good catch!
You probably didn't intend it that way though, right?
What's funny is that I made a tongue in cheek comment several months ago about how the government should require that people identify themselves based on various health factors. So if you have covid, are in a high risk health category if you should be infected, if you've recently gotten a negative test, if you've had it and recovered, etc. I joked that they could provide like color coded patches that people must wear pinned or sewn onto their clothes. Cause you know... That would make things easier and safer for us all, right? Right? Lol...
Want to take a wild guess at which of our two major parties might actually think that was a good idea? I'll give you a hint: It's not the GOP.