03-08-2021, 03:08 PM
(03-08-2021, 12:46 PM)tomh009 Wrote: So, it turns out that this really is quite misleading. Not all samples can be tested for the N501Y mutation (which all of the above variants have); the number screened for N501Y seems to fluctuate around 1,000 per day, or only about 2% of the total number of COVID-19 tests.
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But applying the 30% N501Y positivity rate and the 20% variant positivity rate means that maybe somewhere between 5% and 15% of the COVID samples (that are tested for N501Y) are positive for one of the variants. The case numbers posted make it look like the variants make up only about 0.1% of the cases in Ontario, but I think, based on the data above, that the actual percentage of variants may be between 10x and 100x that.
From a quick look at the Waterloo region covid dashboard it has the UK variant and then screened positive for a variant on the dashboard and the screened positive is more than 10x the amount of the UK. So it seems that the province is just reporting on cases where the lineage is determined so the actual number of cases of variants is 10x the value reported based upon what the region reports.
That also means that since theres only 2% of the total tests screened for N501Y the value of total variants in total should be 50x's larger then what's reported. Ontop of that there's 10x's more than what's reported in that 2% based upon the above which means we could be looking at 500x's more variant cases than what's reported.