17 Comments - DuPage Moderate - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 12:27 pm: Haven’t the additional tests they are now including (since October 15th) also skewing the numbers? Are those additional positives active infections or otherwise? I guess it doesn’t matter than much but it would be nice if somebody objectively explained what these numbers really mean. Either way, it doesn’t look good. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 12:32 pm: ===also skewing the numbers?=== If by skew you mean finding more people who are infected, the answer is yes. lol - Chicagonk - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 12:45 pm: Certainly spiking in Illinois. I think Illinoisans could tolerate a temporary (2 week) state-wide shut-down (go back to phase II). - Marcus Agrippa - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 12:52 pm: We are in full force exponential growth. A few weeks ago ventilator use was around 120 for the state - now 212 and climbing. Is the field hospital still set up at McCormick Place? - natty lite - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 1:15 pm: It isn’t clear from Hannah Meisel’s tweet or from other news I’ve seen about U of I; why would we exclude U of I’s numbers from the total? - Ryan - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 1:37 pm: natty lite: there’s a difference between the positivity rate among people going to be tested because they have some concern, and people who are required to be tested despite having no concern, as at U of I. The latter is a phenomenal public health measure. But the stats aren’t really comparable. However, Rich, Hannah herself said she wasn’t sure whether they’re currently included or not. There are other significant programs like that. Northwestern is testing roughly 1,000/day. If these were included, you’d think they’d have to show up in weird ways in the regional figures - making east central IL look phenomenally good, since there would be more U of I tests than all other tests in that region combined. - Uiuc - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 1:48 pm: Ryan the u of I results are included. Champaign county has over 700,000 tests. It is showing up in the region and in the state. - Ryan - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 1:51 pm: Thanks, UIUC. I had pointed out the arbitrariness of using those numbers in a post here many weeks ago. Not that I could find it now. I’ve always felt positivity rate was a problematic metric, so subject to widely varying denominators. They need to be attempting more random testing in order to create true community infection rates. - harp5339 - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 2:02 pm: == They need to be attempting more random testing in order to create true community infection rates. == So that brings up a point, what increased efforts are “they” making during this surge? My takeaways from the Governor’s press briefings the past couple of days is to wear a mask, wash your hands, and socially distance, along with the justification for closing indoor dining and bars. I agree 100%, but if you didn’t get that into your head by, oh, mid-April, you’re certainly not going to get it now. If any of the non-mask folks are even paying attention to the Governor’s briefings. So what increased efforts are being done by the state beyond “monitoring the situation?” Testing numbers haven’t gone up much, especially when backing out UIUC, no clue what is going on with contact tracing. If Illinois leadership is just going with the flow and hoping the vast majority of citizens will do the right thing, we’re doomed. - Ryan - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 2:15 pm: Another question - my understanding is the U of I can use its rapid test itself, but can’t offer it to the public yet b/c of the FDA approval situation. Is that accurate? If so, is it exploring other ways to expand usage of the U of I test? For instance, UIC has an elementary school program that would typically place students in student teaching positions. Some of the partner schools are likely offering in-person education now. Could the relationship with those schools be legally construed in a way that allowed U of I to bring them into the fold? I can imagine a lot of teachers feeling much better about in-person if large numbers of their students could get a rapid test. (I know you can’t mandate, but I suspect many parents would jump at the chance.) - Chatham Resident - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 2:53 pm: When the vaccine is developed and approved, are all State Employees, teachers, and other government employees among the “vulnerable populations” that will get the vaccines first? I would hope so. - C-U InfoPro - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 2:57 pm: As of October 14, the rolling average for Region 6 does not include the U of I numbers (https://www.dph.illinois.gov/regionmetrics?regionID=6). That’s according to the website. The county level data does include the U of I. I wish they’d split out the U of I numbers at the county level, but CUPHD isn’t even doing that. They aren’t showing a seven day rolling average either. - Candy Dogood - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 3:36 pm: - DuPage Moderate - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 12:27 pm: What people trying to game the positivity test rate don’t understand is that in most cases more than 90% of the people getting tested are negative. There’s also some sample bias where the people getting tested are doing so because of symptoms, or other factors that necessitate the test or otherwise feel the need to get it. The idea of “get tested if your healthy” doesn’t have a predicable impact on the numbers because the only way to rule out someone for having COVID is to test them, so by encouraging more testing they’re removing the sample bias or reducing it’s impact, but they’re not actually doing much to improve the odds of a negative test. Mandatory testing at U of I across an entire student body population removes any selection bias, but is testing an entire population without any necessity. Identified cases are also immediately isolated from that population which has resulted in an artificially low rate of transmission compared to the rest of the state. If everyone were getting tested every two weeks we’d be able to greatly curtail the virus’, but that’s not the system in place. In the U of I test pool, there’s a pretty high likelihood that a person being tested is negative — because the where negative 14 days before hand and infectious people are removed from the sample as promptly as they can be. So if you’re encouraging more people from your sample to get tested and you don’t actually have a recent negative test, you’re basically increasing the likelihood of COVID-19 infections being detected because you don’t actually know who is healthy. - Lindenhurst IL - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 4:07 pm: Winnebago’s high #s are likely because of Trump’s rally in Janesville, as is the region one problem. Absolutely heartbreaking and wishing the best for everyone affected. - Stu - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 4:36 pm: ===Winnebago’s high #s are likely because of Trump’s rally in Janesville, as is the region one problem. Absolutely heartbreaking and wishing the best for everyone affected.=== Is this comment a joke? The rally was only 5 days ago… - Lindenhurst IL - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 5:04 pm: I meant when it comes to the infections, look at how bad region one is faring at the moment which likely had a decent amount of people attend the trump rally. - Thomas Paine - Thursday, Oct 22, 20 @ 6:14 pm: The U of I campus makes up about 0.3% of the state population but makes up 15% of the statewide testing sample. It would be like conducting a statewide poll of 600 voters on cannabis legalization and 100 responses came from the U of I dorms. Law enforcement lobbyists would be calling bull. Or a poll of Trump’s statewide popularity where half the responses came from north of Springfield and half from South of Springfield. Democrats would be calling bull. This misinformation campaign has persisted because it benefits “both sides”: it makes JB look like he is doing a much better job than he is, and he can make more favorable comparisons to neighboring states. It also staves off public anxiety and the demand for additional mitigations, which please Republicans and the business lobby. Unfortunately as Rich pointed out, there is a well-organized lobby to oppose mitigations, but the proponents of mitigation while larger in number are poorly organized. The Illinois PTO should be stepping in here, they have not. The medical providers have been mostly quiet, the teachers have been going it alone, the NAACP has been pretty quiet. That all probably starts to change after Nov. 2…will it be too late? Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.