This is curious

Now you got no excuse for dawdling, damn it!

Because Abbott Lab’s new quick testing tool for coronavirus is made in Scarborough, Maine, the Portland Press Herald has published an article on it. It’s interesting, and the availability of quick determination of infection will free up medical resources, but what struck me were these two figures.

According to the article, approximately 850,000 Coronavirus tests have been conducted, with 140,000 positive results. That’s an infection rate of 0.165 among people showing symptoms of the disease.

But in Maine, the paper says that 6,000 tests have been performed, with 275 positives: 0.045%

6,000 is obviously a lot smaller simple size than 850,000, but tests here are only available upon a doctor’s recommendation, and the doctors are limiting such recommendations only to the sickest of their patients. So 6,000 isn’t that unreasonable a number from which to draw conclusions. So why would Maine have an infection rate about just a quarter of the national average? Using the national rate, Maine should have 990 cases, rather than just 275. Conversely, using Maine’s rate, the US would have just 38,250 cases, not 140,000.

Are the hotspots for the flu, like NYC, skewing the average because it’s so much more prevalent there? If so, are the computer models accounting for the difference between major cities and more rural states?

Or this is just an aberration that will be smoothed out once more testing is done? Who knows? But it’s interesting.