Decoupling can ONLY be judged based on reported statistics. In essence, your son is likely correct in one sense. Cases are underreported for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is, 2 years into this, we still have no valid testing and reporting strategies. However, there was some significant concern with reporting and actual hos…
Decoupling can ONLY be judged based on reported statistics. In essence, your son is likely correct in one sense. Cases are underreported for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is, 2 years into this, we still have no valid testing and reporting strategies. However, there was some significant concern with reporting and actual hospitalizations reported in South Africa, and initial numbers from the UK were, at best, equivocal on disease severity. Looking at similar populations , the UK looked like a better match for the US than S. Africa did.
I'll note that incidental COVID-19 cases in the hospitalized population still require handling as if that were the primary diagnosis because of the high transmissiblity. Relatively mild symptoms have prevailed in the vaccinated population, but not in the unvaccinated population, although even that bit of relatively good news wasn't obvious in the first weeks of this surge.
Decoupling can ONLY be judged based on reported statistics. In essence, your son is likely correct in one sense. Cases are underreported for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is, 2 years into this, we still have no valid testing and reporting strategies. However, there was some significant concern with reporting and actual hospitalizations reported in South Africa, and initial numbers from the UK were, at best, equivocal on disease severity. Looking at similar populations , the UK looked like a better match for the US than S. Africa did.
I'll note that incidental COVID-19 cases in the hospitalized population still require handling as if that were the primary diagnosis because of the high transmissiblity. Relatively mild symptoms have prevailed in the vaccinated population, but not in the unvaccinated population, although even that bit of relatively good news wasn't obvious in the first weeks of this surge.