What’s wrong with this statement?
“Our health data metrics show that testing is increasing, and the percent of tests that are positive continues to trend downward,” he(Northam) said.
OK, when tests were scarce, doctors reserved them for hospitalized patients and those with severe and predictive symptoms(exactly those who didn’t need a test to be diagnosed) but now, as tests become greatly more available, the testing criteria have become much more widespread, including some with no symptoms at all based on occupation and and even ethnicity.
OF COURSE the percentage of positive results is declining. The underlying rate of infection could be unchanged or even climbing, but if you cast a wider net, including many who would not have been given a test a month ago, the rate of positives will still decline.
If that is the basis on which decisions are being made, we are in deep trouble.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
There is some alleged logic that there is just no logic to explain. Governor Coonman is an example of that.
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“Governor Coonman”?
Was he a raccoon hunter of some renown?
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Civility check for nivlac531.
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We’ve seen “racist pig” and Governor Coonman in the same night.
Bars must have reopened.
Nobody flagged them. As a moderator I think leaving those comments just lets us all know who is civil and who is not. As well as who is contributing to the debate with reasoned posts. But I will defer to the rest of the panel since both commenters are closer to their political spectrum.
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“As a moderator I think leaving those comments just lets us all know who is civil and who is not.”
Agreed. However, where is the righteous indignation that I have felt when being uncivil? I thought this is a gentler kinder forum. At least that is what the founder said, more or less.
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If I remember correctly, that was Northam’s college(VMI) nickname. Why I don’t know.
I’ve been fishing this morning so I’m not caught up reading yet
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Exactly. If he allowed it to be used in the VMI yearbook I don’t see why anybody should be upset that I used it here. Hey, it’s his personal history not something I made up.
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Hey, I didn’t put it in his VMI yearbook he did. Or maybe it was placed there by unknown culprits that inserted the black face/clan hooded photos that appeared in his EVMS yearbook.
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Nobody is upset about what you wrote.
A minor point, however. He is Governor Northam, or just Northam.
He may have been Coonman to the yearbook editors, but we try to keep from dropping down the the “Lil Adam Schi%%”, “Crooked Hillary” or other insults and misnomers favored by our president.
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You’d have to ask him. I didn’t allow it into the VMI yearbook.
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#Rothman
Then maybe you should heed your own advice when posting about the president. In your reasoning he is President Trump.
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The thought was before that as more testing was conducted, the rate of infection would go UP. But in actuality the infection rate is declining. I thought that was a good thing?
You are starting to sound like you WANT things to get worse. Or you just hate Northam with such passion that you have lost all level of reason in your thinking about anything he says or does?
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I don’t care for Northam, though in general he has done well on coronavirus, but I do hate misused math.
The point is that when you go from testing only those you’re 90% sure are infected to testing those who are not symptomatic, the rate of positive tests is going to decline.
The measurable and useful number is the number of new, confirmed infections. The percentage of positive tests is only useful if the criteria for testing is unchanged with the increased availability of tests.
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