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Do you think we need a national number? In the past the virus seemed to come and go depending on localities smaller than the entire country, i.e. Florida in th
by mikem170 3y ago
Do you think we need a national number?
In the past the virus seemed to come and go depending on localities smaller than the entire country, i.e. Florida in the summer, NY in the winter, etc. Also much of the mitigations were applied at the state level, not the national level.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoHow do you say whether COVID is up or down without a baseline? If only our local numbers are useful, what is the CDCs role in publicizing local ones when your city/state can do that just as well?
- mikem170 3y agoI guess we could make a distinction between tracking covid deaths, covid hospitalizations and covid infections. It seems to have become a lot less practical to track infections, at any level. People substituted take-home tests for the more easily tracked lab tests, more people with immunity experience milder infections that go unreported, there are still asymptomatic infections, etc. People don't even bother with covid take home tests if they're just experiencing a sinus tickle or other cold symptoms. The article mentioned changes at the CDC related to covid tracking, but didn't specify what changes. I'm under the impression they don't track all diseases all the time. Maybe covid is not enough of an actionable problem anymore for them to dedicate funding to tracking it the same way, especially now that it more difficult to track, and it's not as dangerous as it was. It's more of a known quantity now, like a lot of other endemic illnesses. Maybe they don't care about infections, if hospitalizations and deaths are within the expected range.
- nradov 3y agoDoes it even matter? If we had those numbers what would we do with them?