"A CDC study carried out between March and April 2020 in Seattle, Boston, San Francisco and Atlanta found that 293 of 1,192 shelter residents – about 25% – tested positive for COVID-19. About 11% of the shelters' employees tested positive as well, USA TODAY reported at the time."
Official stats right in the middle of the article!
25% positivity rate is insane!
Joeswift brings up an interesting point though. These stats are about homeless people living in shelters....under probably very crowded conditions. Around Portland, most of the homeless are living in homeless camps in RV's, tents, cardboard boxes, and umbrellas. Essentially, they live outdoors where they are much less likely to breath the same contaminated air that those in shelters are.
One problem is that the unsheltered homeless are pretty hard to survey or monitor. This suggests no one can accurately know how many of them have COVID-19? It is more likely that mainly just those folks who end up in a hospital become part of a survey.
I wonder just who is doing these hospital surveys? Nurses and doctors most likely have no time to survey a really sick and or dying person. I doubt anyone other than medical staff and patients in these hospital wards.
Speaking for surveys I just did one today that was texted to me by the U.S. Census Bureau. Because these surveys are designed to cover a range of people and situations, it is hard to complete them accurately. For example, early on in the survey they ask how many people live in your household. Later they ask more specific questions like what is your household income and questions about childcare. The accurate household income answer should be the combined income of all the folks living here. I have no idea what that amount is, so I just provided my income. I also have no idea when the last time was that my great-granddaughter, who the only young child living here, had a doctor's appointment. Anyway, my point is that these surveys can be way off because of how the data is collected.
