when no one was really looking for it.

But I think there are characteristic symptoms and when someone presents in respiratory distress with those symptoms they test them at the hospital to see if they need to be isolated or not, if they test positive it goes on their charts and if they pass away then it is recorded as a Covid19 death.

He only cares about the ratings. In this case, low infection and death rates. Easy if no one is allowed to count. I used to think he liked to emulate Hitler but this seem more like Stalin. Perhaps Kafkaesque.

Not even everyone suspected of having COVID 19. In Ohio, the state received enough test kits to test 300 people (per my spouse who is on the couunty board of health). (UH and CC are independently testing). But there are not enough to test the living - so they have to choose between testing those who died, and testing those who are alive.

The Washington Post said that doctors have given up on testing because isolation and prevention has failed. Death certificates will probably indicate pneumonia or some other cause. We will only have estimates of the numbers who died from the virus. To maintain morale, the government will keep those numbers as low as possible. No government will ever admit to killing off thousands of their citizens because they made goofy mistakes.

Doctors are going to have more than they can do trying to keep people alive and deciding who get the limited lifesaving equipment and who is left to drown in their own fluids. A lot of patients will get morphine instead of a ventilator. Hopefully we don't run out of morphine too. Decisions will have to be made quickly as to who has the better chance to pull through, or who is the most well placed in society. If you are an old working stiff, you better be taking care of yourself.

Years of not investing in infrastructure, years of privatization of hospitals, years of corporate medicine corner cutting and cost saving is coming home to roost. When this is over you can bet the guilty will be rewarded and the innocent will take the blame.

It's not just that South Korea tested more, it's that they started earlier. At this point testing is mostly academic.