Yesterday was a FIVE Green Arrow Day.

The Processing and Information Lags
Next Newsletter Scheduled for August 24, 2020

Good Morning,

Yesterday was a FIVE Green Arrow Day. Below are the particulars for the day.

Several astute readers have asked why there have been favorable results on the weekends? We have a strong suspicion that it isn’t necessarily the day, but the processing of tests and information reporting lags.

Whenever new cases are reported, keep in mind that reflects test results that may have been performed three to five days earlier, sometimes more. For example, let’s assume that a person contracted COVID 19 this past Monday. Chances are unless they are required to go through a routine testing program such is the case in healthcare professionals and certain athletes, that individual might not feel the symptoms till Thursday or Friday. Depending on the severity of symptoms, they may not seek a test until Friday or Saturday, if at all.

The test can take anywhere from two to five days to be processed and then published. That means that August 17th infection date will show up in the statistics on August 24th or 25th, a week later. That’s why many epidemiologists are sometimes skeptical about any day-to-day reporting. The weekends add to these lags because many lab technicians and other professionals only have a five-day workweek.

One might say that fatalities are the only reliable piece of information. Well, maybe not, we have seen many retroactive adjustments to this category both in adding and subtracting to prior day or week totals.

Weekly and monthly trends tend to mute these delays.