Doctors not testing

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In defence, if you do have it and are low risk, you don't need to do anything other than self quarantine.
Testing poses a modest risk to the tester and uses extremely valuable protective equipment which is in short supply.
The numbers will never reflect all cases. But the goal of medicine isn't to look back and review stats. It's to take good care of the people in front of you.

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All of that, plus by the time the results come back, you’ll be over it and there’s a shortage of tests.

You don't. That is why the mortality rate is bullshite.

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Well that’s all well and good, but how do you know how many people got the virus and from that, how fatal it is?

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You don't. But I don't care about the rate of death. I care when someone in front of me is dying.

I've had two flu deaths in the last 4 years. The rate of death is estimated at 0.1%. That's for statisticians to masterbate about. It doesn't affect the way I treat patients at all.



Tests that help treatment are great.
Tests that determine accurate stats are in the eye of the beholder. I, for one, don't care much for them.

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Tests that help treatment are great.
Tests that determine accurate stats are in the eye of the beholder. I, for one, don't care much for them.

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That’s all well and good. As a doctor, Saving a life should matter more to you.

But I’m not a doctor. I’m a guy whose livelihood, savings, and financial well-being are being destroyed by the rate of mortality of the Kung flu. So that matters greatly to me. Should matter to you too at some level.

Your lack of interest in the subject, while noble, is off putting considering doctors are having a hand in how this pandemic is handled.

I hope you and your wife feel better soon!

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Your lack of interest in the subject,

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It's not a lack of interest at all, actually. It's simply an understanding that all stats are estimates, and having an accurate stat that is truly representative takes years of data to compile. You won't get a good one anytime soon, and it will be debated for years to come.
Further, observation of nature doesn't change what's happening*. Stats lag, but it doesn't change the course of what will actually happen.
Yes. That's terrifying. But there is nothing I can do about it except put one foot in front of the other. Spending valuable time and resources finding a number that can't be found until later that doesn't change what happens now falls out of my number one priority.

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considering doctors are having a hand in how this pandemic is handled.

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I can assure you that outside of being part of a committee that argues about internal workings of clinics and hospitals, I have no say in how this pandemic is publicly handled. And that's probably a good thing. I have no business doing so. We also work daily to try to come up with estimates of real mortality. They're all guesses. We are all to the brim on interpreting data, and I ping-pong a few times a day between, "we are going to be fine in a few weeks" and "I'm probably going to die soon or at the very least lose my business"




*Someone may respond with something witty about quantum physics. I would appreciate that.

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He’s sacrificing the lives and livelihoods of millions for the lives of thousands.

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Help me out. Who is "he?" And what does testing have to do with decisions made by the government?
Hint: it helps. But they understand the messiness of data gathering. It's a big part of why their projections change with regularity

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I’m not marginalizing his risk, but he’s not being forced to do it.

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you're damn right I'm not forced to do it. That's why I don't incur risk on myself or my staff when nothing is to be gained from it. I exercise that decision-making capacity with caution.

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How can the people we trust to tell us what is going on with this pandemic be believed if they aren’t getting reliable data on which to base their opinions?

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If you think that the people you trust are operating on 100% accurate and reliable data all the time, then you have a big misunderstanding of what is often being presented to you. The devil is in the details.
Flu numbers aren't reported by testing everyone, either. The tests aren't perfect. The test for coronavirus that I have is being reported as something like 85% sensitive. So let's say OP and 6 guys just like him all had it.
1 would theoretically test negative despite actually having it.
The most likely answer doesn't change whether the test is positive or negative.

This isn't me superimposing my will on medicine or public health. This is how the two are practiced. And these are the reports, numbers you read about. That is why they change as often as they do.

I was referencing you and pointing out that while individual doctors don’t, and in a case by case shouldn’t, care about the broader statistics, having policies to turn away patients that are low risk but may test positive skews numbers/statistics to paint this virus in a more deadly light than it might be, making the actions and decisions by some government officials more dangerous to people’s lives, and absolutely to their livelihoods, than the virus.

The probability of where this virus is located on the spectrum is still an unknown equation, and we won’t be able to see it’s true mortality at any one snapshot in time unless we observe it truly.