[M T]

I saw FL says they have 50,000 people who "have no idea" how they got the virus.  Just a total facepalm moment for this country.

When you play the game where one person whispers something in the ear of the next person and it goes down the line,  at the end of the line it is almost always mangled in some way.

Florida has now reported over 100,000 coronavirus cases,...

Data Florida Department of Health released Monday shows more than 50,000 people can’t pinpoint how they contracted the coronavirus or who spread it to them.

(source)
Going backward, "no idea" probably came from something like "can't pinpoint".

But digging further, to the apparent real source, Florida reports that of a bit over 100K cases,

• 44K had known contact with confirmed case, and
  
• 58K for whom that isn't true or isn't yet known to be true.
  

Of the 58K,

• 15.6K had no travel and no contact.
  
• 18.8K "contact is unknown",   It is unclear to me if "contact is unknown" means contact existed to people unknown to the patient, or the interviewer was not able to get contact info from the patient, or the contact(s) couldn't be found or refused to be tested.
  
• 22.3K "contact is pending".   I presume "contact is pending" means that contacts were identified and testing results are pending
  

Still, that's about 15% "no contact".



However, there is still the question of whether the contact mentioned here is the infector or infectee of the case (or co-infected).  Generally tracking is primarily looking for infectees, but may also find infector or co-infected. 

So, I don't see this as supporting "how they got the virus" portion.

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When we have many cases where we don't know how people get the infection, I don't feel we can be certain that the disease is primarily (or almost exclusively) spread by droplet/aerosol (from people) or even fomites.   I think the only way that is acceptable proof to someone like the CDC is to prove that someone with the disease was never exposed to droplets or aerosols or fomites.  That's a very high hurdle.   I don't think you could prove that by a case in an inmate in isolation in death row.

[M T]

I saw FL says they have 50,000 people who "have no idea" how they got the virus.  Just a total facepalm moment for this country.

When you play the game where one person whispers something in the ear of the next person and it goes down the line,  at the end of the line it is almost always mangled in some way.

Florida has now reported over 100,000 coronavirus cases,...

Data Florida Department of Health released Monday shows more than 50,000 people can’t pinpoint how they contracted the coronavirus or who spread it to them.

(source)
Going backward, "no idea" probably came from something like "can't pinpoint".

But digging further, to the apparent real source, Florida reports that of a bit over 100K cases,

• 44K had known contact with confirmed case, and
  
• 58K for whom that isn't true or isn't yet known to be true.
  

Of the 58K,

• 15.6K had no travel and no contact.
  
• 18.8K "contact is unknown",   It is unclear to me if "contact is unknown" means contact existed to people unknown to the patient, or the interviewer was not able to get contact info from the patient, or the contact(s) couldn't be found or refused to be tested.
  
• 22.3K "contact is pending".   I presume "contact is pending" means that contacts were identified and testing results are pending
  

Still, that's about 15% "no contact".



However, there is still the question of whether the contact mentioned here is the infector or infectee of the case (or co-infected).  Generally tracking is primarily looking for infectees, but may also find infector or co-infected. 

So, I don't see this as supporting "how they got the virus" portion.

------

When we have many cases where we don't know how people get the infection, I don't feel we can be certain that the disease is primarily (or almost exclusively) spread by droplet/aerosol (from people) or even fomites.   I think the only way that is acceptable proof to someone like the CDC is to prove that someone with the disease was never exposed to droplets or aerosols or fomites.  That's a very high hurdle.   I don't think you could prove that by a case in an inmate in isolation in death row.