The Cape Gazette letter to the editor May 5 titled “Delawareans are desperate for action,” and signed by 15 Delaware House representatives, contained a flaw in logic as well as other shortcomings.
The letter cited the governor’s condition for starting the re-opening of the economy. It is that we have “a 14-day decline in the percentage of positive cases....” The letter also said that the governor “...prioritized increased testing...” but the letter signers declared that “This will lead to the discovery of more cases, [and concluded that] this is a flawed metric on which to base the recovery since a higher case rate is a function of expanded [de]tection, not an increased threat to public health.”
As it is stated, there is a major logical flaw in the line of thinking expressed in the quote. The phrase: ‘a case rate’ is equivalent to a percent. If, for example, 100 tests show that 10 are infected then that is a 10 percent positive rate. All else being equal, another 100 tests on a different sample of people in the same population will give another 10 positives. Thus there are more tests and more cases but the percentage of positives is the same (20/200=10%). This means no increase in threat. Now, if the second, separate 100 tests - carried out at some time later - found 20 positives, then the percentage goes to 20 percent which indicates that the virus has spread to more people. This means the threat increased.
Therefore, the claim that increased testing will just detect more of the infections and not help learn anything about an increased threat is a false conclusion. Actually, the increased testing has three possible outcomes: increased, decreased or unchanged positives. Those outcomes will tell us a lot.
To me, the “threat to public health” is that the COVID-19 virus spreads from infected people to uninfected people. Thus the total infected population grows to the sum of infected plus the previously uninfected which are now infected. The “increased testing” is the only way to measure growth in the threat. Worldwide COVID-19 data from many countries that instituted serious lockdowns proved that you can “flatten the curve” and put the brakes on deaths and sickness.
If we don’t flatten the curve, then we get more overload at the hospital and even more new infections, which will lead to even more deaths and suffering. More deaths of employees and more employees absent due to sickness means a reduced workforce. More deaths also means a reduced buyer market. More fear will inhibit consumers. How this threat to business - caused by proposing less testing - escaped the notice of the 15 representatives is rather beyond me. It shows the result of a half-baked thinking process. It is another shortcoming of the letter.
As a moral and ethical shortcoming of the representatives’ letter, the idea that we should not do increased testing is akin to sweeping the dirt under the rug. The problem is that this dirt will crawl back out and bite again.
On the other hand, what the representatives might have in mind when they think of “threat to public health” might be more in terms of their greater concern for the welfare of bottom-line business cash flow rather than concern for the welfare of flesh-and-blood human beings. We do need to restore the economy, but let’s not treat human beings like disposable commodities.
Finally, the representatives’ letter reminded me of the Gazette report April 28 about Councilman Sam Wilson Jr. In the article, he was quoted as saying, during a public meeting, that increased testing was a “dumb idea.” Other quotes from his presentation made it sound like they came from a brain capable of little more than ramblings and incoherent thoughts. Another Delaware newspaper gave a similar account.
Arthur E. Sowers
Harbeson
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