03-16-2020, 07:11 PM
(03-16-2020, 04:19 PM)MidTowner Wrote: Not only is testing very narrow, though, testing protocols have changed in Ontario. The same individual who merited a test a week or two ago would not have a few days ago. There is effectively acknowledgement that there are many, many cases of the virus in Ontario that will not be captured in those numbers. The Public Health Officer in Ottawa estimated that there are likely 1000 or so cases in the community.
I'm not saying anything about whether more people should be tested or not, just that the relationship between confirmed cases and actual cases has likely changed over the past weeks, and so the growth rate may be a lot higher than shown in your chart. We can't know for sure what the curve we're climbing looks like.
But your conclusion is obviously correct: Italy's system is overwhelmed, ours is still manageable. The measures we take today and tomorrow will hopefully ensure is still is in a couple of weeks' time.
I think everyone would like to do more testing, it's a capacity issue: number of kits, number of people collecting tests, the lab capacity. I don't know where the bottleneck is currently, but I do expect the system is testing at max capacity.
There were 32 new confirmed cases in Ontario today. I think I read that 24 of those had traveled in the US.
Today's number of new cases was not comforting, but one day is a very small sample size, that's why I did it by week. Let's see how the rest of the week goes.