One of our contacts supervises all the free COVID testing in Miami. He started to notice familiar faces returning to the very long lines. Evidently, many union workers must have 2 consecutive positive tests to get unemployment benefits, which are now higher than normal wages. Some guys are desperate to test positive. One actually tried to get him to "help me out" and talk to a union rep, which he declined.

We also hear of reporting incentives and odd guidelines to put COVID first on disclosures. One of the more interesting factoids was that if they followed current reporting guidelines, George Floyd should have been reported as a COVID death. At first, I wasn't sure about that one but found it in a published article. This is aligned to what we hear anecdotally from customers. A similar guideline is that all in-patients must be tested for COVID, and if positive, they are listed as a COVID hospitalization. As hospitals open for elective procedures, the "COVID hospitalizations" are raising, even when many are asymptomatic and originally unaware of their COVID status.

Another article shared a supposed closed door meeting where Dr. Birx suggested the over reporting is about 25% on COVID deaths. I read in another article a WHO official suggested over reporting is always embraced because many people will not heed warnings or modify behavior otherwise.

Unfortunately, there is just enough noise to drive conspiracy theorists and contrarians, resulting in way too many people ignoring reasonable safety guidelines. Personally, I wish they would be more accurate in their reporting, because over time it seems to backfire.
[Post edited by pfishe at 07/08/2020 10:21AM]