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Another way to fudge the numbers, simply don't report.

Here in Canada it's now 3 provinces that don't report in the weekend, Alberta (which is dealing with a resurgence), BC and Saskatchewan. In Europe Spain, France and Bosnia Herzegovina joined Sweden and Denmark in not reporting for the weekend, while The Netherlands remains silent until Tuesday. So Europe numbers took a bigger dip than normal for a Saturday.

USA had 4th of the July which likely slowed down testing as well but at least most reporting continued (6 states didn't update)



In Canada immunity testing is underway while slamming the poor accuracy of immunity testing less than a week ago.

The national immunity task force has started testing thousands of blood samples for COVID-19 antibodies and should be able to produce a more detailed picture of how many Canadians have been infected with the novel coronavirus within a couple of weeks.

And won't be useful for those getting tested

Most of the people whose blood is being tested will not be informed of the results because of how the blood is being collected for testing.


It will be a biased study as well...

There are multiple prongs to the task force's plan to figure out the true infection rate here, starting with running antibody tests on 40,000 samples collected from people who donated blood to Canadian Blood Services and Hema Quebec since May. Evans said about 1,600 of those samples are being run through the test kits every day now, and analyses are already under way on the results.

Another testing program is now beginning on 25,000 blood samples taken from pregnant women, using blood routinely drawn during the first trimester to screen for sexually transmitted infections and check for immunity to other illnesses like rubella. COVID-19 antibody testing will be added to that list for all pregnant women in Canada, going back all the way to December. The women will be informed if they test positive for COVID-19 antibodies, said Evans.

Evans said there are also about 30,000 blood samples held in provincial labs that are being tested for antibodies.


Yet at least they are planning for the long haul

The task force also has a two-year mandate to try to look at what kind of protection someone has from having antibodies, as well as how long the levels of antibodies last in a person's blood. Evans said those studies are just getting underway and will take time, including looking to see whether people who have the antibodies get infected during a second or third wave of the pandemic.