Yesterday was a NINE Green Arrow Day.

Active Cases or Virus Carriers

Good Morning,

Yesterday was a NINE Green Arrow Day, below are the particulars.

One aspect of covering COVID 19 and writing the newsletters is the fixation on the accumulated cases. That is an important number, but we believe policymakers would be better armed with knowing how many active/open or virus carriers that are currently in any given region. For example, there are three graphs shown below that show the accumulated number of cases versus how many are active. Imagine, for instance, going to Lake County, Ohio, and ask yourself the question, is it more important to know the historical number or those that could pass the virus to you?

In the below graphs, we calculated the “virus carriers” using this formula:

1.  All data is courtesy of the Ohio Department of Health as of August 2, 2020.
2. Begin with accumulated cases.
3. Subtract all fatalities.
4. Subtract likely recoveries.
5. Result: Net Active/Open Cases or Virus Carriers.

We calculate the likely or probable recoveries based on what experts believe is the duration of the virus. Most countries use a three-week time frame from the infection date to assume a probable recovery, and this number is reported to Worldometer. Many experts will say in mild cases, two-weeks is the duration. Individuals will seek a test sometime after symptoms are realized, generally a couple or three days after exposure to COVID, the test and results may take as long as three days to process.

We are using a 16 day (5 days for symptoms and processing = 21 days), 14-day, 12-day, and 10-day periods to estimate how many individuals are active virus carriers that are capable of spreading COVID. The data in the graphs are two days old, and in the combination of the days before symptoms appear and the test processing time, it is likely that the appropriate day number to use is closer to twelve than eighteen.

Notice much lower the active germ carriers are compared to the historical accumulated number. That factor should be able to have policymakers focus their attention and resources more effectively, especially since there is a record of who those carriers are.

Ohio

Ohio, with a population of 11.7 million, has between 4,000 to 7,000 germ or virus carriers. These smaller numbers would be more natural to focus attention and resources rather than the entire state population. It would seem a more precise approach.

Lake County, Ohio

Lake County’s population is just about 230,000 and probably has less than 100 cases to monitor.