I want to start by echoing your gratitude to the microCOVID team: they’ve done amazing work and the tool they’ve produced has been incredibly valuable to me and to many others. And I agree with your assessment that microCOVID is much less useful than it has been in the past. I’ll add to your points:
Their calculation of prevalence strikes me as far too clever. I understand what they’re trying to do, and it makes sense in theory. But Covid surveillance is something I know a lot about, and I believe they’re over-driving the data. Test positivity seems like a really valuable signal, until you understand what goes into it—once you do, it seems much less useful. In my own modeling, I use (current case rate) * (under-reporting constant), with a manually determined adjustment for trend. But I’d rather use the current level than the fancy extrapolated level used by microCOVID.
They’re using significantly inaccurate constants in some places that matter. For example: their household Secondary Attack Rate (SAR) for a fully boosted person is 15%, but a better value would be 25% paper 1, paper 2.
I don’t know the answer here. We need a tool like microCOVID, and I understand how hard it is to maintain a volunteer-based tool.
Thank you for this.
I want to start by echoing your gratitude to the microCOVID team: they’ve done amazing work and the tool they’ve produced has been incredibly valuable to me and to many others. And I agree with your assessment that microCOVID is much less useful than it has been in the past. I’ll add to your points:
Their calculation of prevalence strikes me as far too clever. I understand what they’re trying to do, and it makes sense in theory. But Covid surveillance is something I know a lot about, and I believe they’re over-driving the data. Test positivity seems like a really valuable signal, until you understand what goes into it—once you do, it seems much less useful. In my own modeling, I use (current case rate) * (under-reporting constant), with a manually determined adjustment for trend. But I’d rather use the current level than the fancy extrapolated level used by microCOVID.
They’re using significantly inaccurate constants in some places that matter. For example: their household Secondary Attack Rate (SAR) for a fully boosted person is 15%, but a better value would be 25% paper 1, paper 2.
I don’t know the answer here. We need a tool like microCOVID, and I understand how hard it is to maintain a volunteer-based tool.