Will more tests lead to more cases? Insanely correct

President Trump said that if you test less, you will have fewer cases. 

So is this true for Malaysia?

As can be seen from the chart below, the number of daily tests reported for this month (based on 17 to 23 of the respective month) is lower than that for last month.

The strange thing is that the number of daily cases has also come down from 45 daily cases in May (based on 17 to 23 May) to 12 daily cases this month (based on 17 to 23 June)

Wow!  We have fewer tests and also less number of cases!!

So it is true then that the more we test, the more cases we will find!!!

 

Malaysia Actual Covid Test vs Capacity

Why are we not like the US where “more testing will lead to more cases”?

This is because the way to assess whether there are sufficient tests is to look at the positivity rate ie no of positive divided by the total number of tests.

On a cumulative basis as of yesterday (Source: Worldodometer)

• We have 1.2 % positivity rate
• The US is at 8.2 %
• WHO standard is to be below 10%
• Singapore is at 6.2 %
• South Korea is at 1.0%

The chart below shows how our positivity has changed over the past 4 months (based on 17 to 23 of the respective month)

You can see that we have been improving the testing performance since the start of the MCO from about 11.9 % down to 0.3 %

Note that this % is different from that 1.2 % reported above because we are looking at the rate based on a particular week whereas for the 1.2 % we are looking from a cum cases c/w cum tests.

 

For Positivity refer to left axis, For no of tests refer to the right axis

It is not just the number of tests that have come down.  It has come down at a time when we have more testing capacity since the start of the MCO.

Of course, we know that not all the capacity has gone for testing new cases, but even if you factor this in, there appears to be spare capacity.

What a waste – can’t we “export” it to the US?.  I thought Indonesia is short of testing capacity.  Since we could fly the test samples from Sabah and Sarawak to Peninsular, there is no reason why we cannot fly in the test samples from Kalimantan or even the other Indonesian islands. 

I think we could do with the forex income.

If MyEG can export its contact tracing app to the Philippines, I am sure the private sector would be exporting the testing to our neighbours. 

But on a serious note, we should see whether we can expand our targeted testing to some of the more common cases that seem to be surfacing currently

• Construction clusters

• Chicken (Pedas cluster) factories – I guess this is our equivalent the meat-packing industry that seemed to be the new clusters in US and Germany

• Large public events – we could make it part of the SOP for large events eg > 1,000 people so that we can have political campaigns, etc

When I see President Trump holding his political rally at Tulso last weekend, my first question was whether this is going to be the US Tabligh?

Do you remember our Tabligh?

• 3 days event with 16,000 participants
• 1,037 index cases
• Eventually, 3,375 tested positive and into its 5th generation
• 42,000 people were tested at the end of the day

So will we have another Tabligh as we relax the ban on public functions? 

I don’t think so for the following reasons

• The biggest challenge for Tabligh was contact tracing.  Today with the SOP  requiring the registration of participants' contacts, I think we will not have the same contact tracing problem

• We had people actually coming from other countries to attend the Sri Petaling event.  I am not sure how many of these were index cases.  Today this is unlikely to happen given our quarantine process for incoming travelers

• We have temperature checks for attendees so it should weed out those potentially sick from attending

• And of course today many would be wearing masks

If you look at my points, then you would agree that Tulsa may turn up to be Trumps’ Tabligh ie one event that triggered a massive spike in infection as

• Some staff helping to prepare the rally already tested positive for Covid 19 (OK it was before the start of the event)

• Some of the secret staff covering Tulsa have been asked to self-quarantine after one was tested positive

• Hardly anyone in the event wore masks

• I am sure that given the American propensity for freedom, there is no contact tracing app.  But I think they would have a list of those who attended as they had to book for tickets.  This will not prevent those who attended from catching the virus, but at least it will prevent the spread to several generations.

Time will tell.  Wait for 2 to 3 weeks. 

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PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia.

Disclaimer:  I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist, or staff in the Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical analysis.  The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in the battle against COVID 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied on as such.