Case Counts

I read the news today, oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Know they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
--The Beatles

One of the most manipulative approaches currently employed by mainstream media to drum up fear of coronavirus is focusing headlines on total positive case counts. They must focus on this because the metrics that really matter, such as daily deaths and hospitalizations. are declining.

The media also know that case counts are likely to rise with increasing number of tests--and daily test for the virus have been increasing for some time. The more tests run, the greater number of tests indicated as positive.

For example, in the US...

On April 3, there were 111,250 tests given & 31,896 positive results (24.1% pos).

On June 3, there were 457,112 tests given & 20,046 positive results (4.4% pos).

So, the # tests went up over 4x but # of new cases went down 37%.

— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) June 6, 2020

An honest media would focus on the ratio of daily positive tests to daily total tests, which over time becomes a proxy for the prevailing infection rate. That ratio has been declining for some time and currently rests at about 5%.

A more honest approach yet would be breaking down the infections by age group, since we know that the virus poses little threat to younger people. Stated differently, how many of the total infections appear to really matter?

But doing so would ease the fear narrative--something that the media can't afford to do.