Journal of the Virus Year: My experiences with the virus: March 11, 2020

Thomas Gainsborough, English, born Sudbury, England 1727-died London, England 1788 Public Domain

As the worldwide number of confirmed infections of the Coronavirus COVID-19 passes 120,000, the big issue in the United States is whether or not the reporting system is functioning at all. The question is not the number of people who have been diagnosed with the coronavirus but the number of tests and testing kits that have been taken. There is no doubt that the coronavirus has been circulating in the United States for weeks but political blundering and denial have resulted in only a relatively few actual medical tests being administered. Obtaining those numbers is complicated by the fact that private test results are not reported and according to some news accounts, the results from tests by Center for Disease Control (CDC) are no longer publishing negative results for the coronavirus. Quoting from the CDC website,

CDC is no longer reporting the number of persons under investigation (PUIs) that have been tested, as well as PUIs that have tested negative. Now that states are testing and reporting their own results, CDC’s numbers are not representative of all testing being done nationwide. 

Here is the infographic of the number of states reporting cases of COVID-19 to the CDC from the CDE website for March 10, 2020.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html

A running total of all the worldwide cases is being maintained by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) of the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering. Further reliable information about the coronavirus can be obtained from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The COVID-19 Interactive Map is the best resource for seeing the progress of the disease across the world.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

It is important to remember that the numbers on this map are only the instances of the coronavirus that are reported and counted. Countries such as North Korea that are refusing to report are not included.

Obviously, the coronavirus is a major topic of conversation. However, I have already heard a significant amount of misinformation from conversations about the coronavirus and from news outlets that are quoting inaccurate numbers. The CDC is obviously not an accurate source because they are reporting only reporting "confirmed and presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 reported to CDC or tested at CDC since January 21, 2020." On March 10, that number for the total cases was 647 while the CSSE number for the morning of March 11 for the United States was at 1,040. However, both numbers are most likely lower than the actual incidence.

As an attorney, I automatically examine the evidence. I also discount any evidence that appears to originate from politically influenced sources. However, it is evident that if the information I receive is wrong (i.e. my client is lying to me) my conclusions might also be wrong. But from all I read, the numbers of actual infections here in the U.S. is much higher than either of these two reporting sources.

Well, that is all for today. I will be writing more about our efforts to evaluate and react to the disease as time goes on. We did make our "run" to the stores and had no trouble ultimately finding what we needed despite some of the bare shelves in Costco. Since we always keep a sufficient supply of essentials on hand to last us many months, we do not have to resort to panic buying every time there is something that comes up to cause the rest of the world to go berserk.