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I was one of those affected. The official CDC numbers are underestimates, because they're only counting cases confirmed by culture. My doc asked enough questions to make sure it wasn't your typical stomach flu or food poisoning and got me the antibiotics ASAP which I appreciated. I assume I'm not counted as a result. I have to assume others aren't as well.

by Fomite4 hours ago|

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This. As an infectious disease epidemiologist, the number of people who will work their way into laboratory confirmed case reports is a small fraction of the total number of people impacted.

You are almost certainly not reflected in those numbers.

by wonnage8 hours ago|

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Furthermore the present CDC was gutted by an administration whose solution to Covid was to stop counting

by zimpenfish5 hours ago|

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And whose solution to "Is cyclospora a problem?" was to remove the monitoring and presumably stick their fingers in their ears.[0]

[0] https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-cdc-food-net-monitorin...

by Fomite4 hours ago|

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The FoodNet thing, while bad, has a bit of nuance in the system was not meant to do outbreak detection, so likely wouldn't have helped here.

But it does cripple our ability to ask if this was a one-off, or if we're seeing long term trends that should be worrisome.

by nkrisc8 hours ago|

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Comparing it to car safety does put it in perspective, but at the same time the safety of cars has nothing to do with food safety. Considering the necessity of food for life, and the fact our current population size is dependent on industrialized farming, I think it's worth to scrutinize food safety and hold it to a high standard.

by kulahan6 hours ago|

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The US is uniquely dependent on cars for survival, it’s probably not appropriate to presume that cars are less necessary. Anyways, if you live in the middle of nowhere you can grow your own food. If you live deep in the city, the chances of getting sick from McD’s or whatever is pretty low.

We do hold food safety to a high standard. We have some of the highest standards on the planet.

by NewJazz5 hours ago|

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I'm sorry, it is not appropriate to presume that cars are less necessary than food? Hmm, what about water, is that one more important or are cars still top of mind for you?

by xp845 hours ago|

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I think the point being made wasn't literally that cars are more important than food, but more that for most Americans, you can't really get by without store-bought food and a car. This is just fact.

A few lucky people live in the densest urban areas where car non-ownership is totally fine, nice even. For the rest, it's horrible and no one would choose it. A trip to the grocery store in the suburbs could take 30-45 minutes each way in 90º heat (and in half the country, with humidity too) is terrible - and think how many times you'll have to go to the store if you're buying only what you can carry 3 miles. Also many school districts provide no buses, so now you're walking kids to and from school in all weather. Bikes are a thing, but the roads aren't always safe and it still sucks in weather.

by NewJazz3 hours ago|

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For most Americans, you can't really get by without store-bought food and a car. This is just fact.

For all animals on earth, you can't really get by without food. This is jus a fact.

by adrianN1 hours ago|

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The economic utility of car transportation is also far higher than that of lettuce.

by nobodyandproud3 hours ago|

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My entire family was affected. We didn’t report it but the impact was felt.

We also stopped buying lettuce.

by lazystar8 hours ago|

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> but the safety of driving cars is far worse than that and most of us do that daily.

this "whattabout"ism is brought up during every safety discussion. can we please accept that 1/ everyone knows about the car issue, and 2/ the car issue being a problem does not mean we should stop talking about other issues that exist.

by stouset5 hours ago|

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No one is saying we shouldn’t work to improve the safety of multiple systems at a time. But it is helpful to keep perspective over relative safety.

People are very prone to overweight the risk of things that are prominent in the media.

by wat100008 hours ago|

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I'm not convinced about 1. There are a lot of things we could be doing about a 9/11's worth of dead people every single month that we just don't.

In any case, it's a good barometer for judging personal risk. I don't stress about the danger when I get into my car, so I probably shouldn't stress about the danger from something substantially less likely to take me out. It contextualizes a number by comparing it to something most of us do every day.

by macNchz7 hours ago|

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I think a lot of people sort of instinctively avoid thinking about or engaging with the dangers posed by cars, at least in part because it creates a sense of dissonance that there’s a non-zero risk of life changing harm to you or your family from such a “normal” activity. For many people today, there is no alternative but to accept the risk if you want to do anything outside your home, other than dramatically upending your life to move somewhere else. Thinking too much about risks that feel outside your control just creates a state of anxiety.

by JDups1 hours ago|

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Honestly I did not know the numbers at all, so thank you, but those are higher than what I would have guessed.

by GuinansEyebrows7 hours ago|

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i have health insurance, i know i got it, and i rode it out without going to the doctor (not saying that was the right choice, it's just what i did).

i guarantee you that first number is wildly non-illustrative of the reach of this outbreak.

by ansley9 hours ago|

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"not to diminish" as you wave away 2 people that have died and make a false equivalency to traffic accidents.

This is not a data exercise, this is real life and 1 person getting sick from this stuff is too much.

by kulahan6 hours ago|

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ONE person getting SICK is too much??? We’ve never been within a million miles of this random bar you’ve set. No country has. It’s absolutely insane to try and hold the position that our food must be so perfectly clean that it cannot ever get anyone sick. That would almost certainly be impossible. If you can’t even engage with reality, nobody will take these massive statements seriously.

by logifail9 hours ago|

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> This is not a data exercise, this is real life [...]

You may not wish to hear this, but real life is very much a data exercise:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm