Case Count Heads-Up

New first episodes and new reinfections: a case count curveball (rev 1.1)

My modelling of new daily cases by specimen date using Cochrane-Orcutt estimation to account for serial correlation has thrown up some interesting results in more ways than one. One issue that got me tugging my beard is the extraordinary case count during December 2021, that may be squinted at here. This explosion of COVID gave the model a headache and so once again I ask the question… is this data real?

By ‘real’ I mean does it really mean what we may logically think or does it mean something that we haven’t fathomed? Some twist of definitions perhaps, or a methodological nudge that once again fails to get the publicity needed to avoid the public going down the wrong track.

We all know that a COVID ‘case’ isn’t a medical case proper, being a term used to denote a positive test result (which may or may not be erroneous, and may or may not point to a viral presence capable of infecting somebody else). Young folk at Mrs Dee’s school cottoned on quickly how to become a ‘case’ if they want…