When even publications like The Atlantic and the NYT are skeptical, then you definitely have to wonder ---
On May 21, 2020, the Atlantic reported that the CDC was over counting the number of cases of individuals with the China coronavirus:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic. We’ve learned that the CDC is making, at best, a debilitating mistake: combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus. The upshot is that the government’s disease-fighting agency is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19. The agency confirmed to The Atlantic on Wednesday that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons.
This is not merely a technical error. States have set quantitative guidelines for reopening their economies based on these flawed data points.
Several states—including Pennsylvania, the site of one of the country’s largest outbreaks, as well as Texas, Georgia, and Vermont—are blending the data in the same way. Virginia likewise mixed viral and antibody test results until last week, but it reversed course and the governor apologized for the practice after it was covered by the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Atlantic. Maine similarly separated its data on Wednesday; Vermont authorities claimed they didn’t even know they were doing this.
BY INCLUDING BOTH ACTIVE CASES WITH CASES OF INDIVIDUALS WHO HAD THE CHINA CORONAVIRUS IN THE PAST, THE CDC IS GROSSLY OVERSTATING THE NUMBER OF ACTIVE CASES IN THE US.
UNFORTUNATELY, STATES LIKE TEXAS AND FLORIDA HAVE RESET THEIR ECONOMIC REOPENING TIME TABLES BASED ON THIS BOGUS DATA.
Apparently the CDC is still co-mingling these results. Forbes reported last week:
A report released Thursday from the Government Accountability Office levied criticism at the CDC for combining active cases of the coronavirus and positive antibody tests, which may give a misleading view of nationwide testing and spread.
The far-left New York Times also reported last week on the GAO’s report:
The report also criticized the C.D.C.’s counting of coronavirus tests, which combines tests for an active infection and those that detect antibodies. This practice inflates the percentage of Americans that appear to have been tested and gives an unreliable picture of the way the virus is spreading around the country, according to the new report. After the C.D.C. was criticized last month for combining the two types of tests in its reports, the agency promised to separate them. But as of June 9, it had still not resolved the issue, the office reported.
