FASCINATING COVID-19 Data Points----Really Telling and Really Interesting

 

25% of nearly 3500 Asymptomatic patients tested for COVID-19 since Christmas are testing positive for the virus.  This is a very telling number.  What does that mean for the entire population though--could we use that percentage to extrapolate for our entire county's 320,000 residents?

Anyone and everyone can regurgitate FDOH statistics and data numbers.  Lots of people track the positivity numbers and the negative test results etc..  And that's all great.  I follow these numbers daily myself, as I have since this all started last year at this time.

But some interesting stats have been hard to get.

It took me 6 months of pressing to FINALLY get the "Recovered" number added to the County's COVID-19 dashboard.  I have subsequently taken heat because I pressed for that.  Some people don't like the term "recovered" because some COVID-19 patients don't die---yet they suffer significant ongoing medical issues.  That is a fair question and reasonable criticism--but I do not believe it means we shouldn't track the percentages and numbers that "Survive" a COVID-19 Diagnosis.  Perhaps we should change that term from "recovered" to "survived"--I don't know.  

Meanwhile--I recently heard from our Hospital administrators and testing partners that of 100% of nearly 5000 citizens locally in the 2-County Area (Santa Rosa and Escambia) being tested since Christmas----70% are asymptomatic and 30% present with flu-like symptoms.

So, naturally, I asked for the important data from those percentages:  What percentage of the 70% asymptomatic test subjects came back with a positive result for COVID-19?

"We are not tracking that" was the initial response.   "Why NOT?!?" was my reply.

So I asked for this number and I received some FASCINATING information back from the hospital staff with whom I spoke, with percentages, in my email box.  Full disclosure--the verbal disclaimer from these folks was that this was a rough order of magnitude, "Back of the envelope" number.  But still, it is interesting and it is a lot higher number than many would have suspected... From the email:

"Good morning, I wanted to give you the stats since Christmas that we discussed on the phone yesterday. Since Christmas, we still have about 70% of patients being COVID tested in Escambia County who do not have symptoms and 30% who do have symptoms. Of the people with symptoms - they are running at a 41% positive rate in Escambia county since Christmas. Of the people without symptoms - they are running at a 25% positive rate since Christmas."