The data is coming from the CDC. They need to wait for partnered hospitals to identify positive cases and sequence them for variant tracking. We're currently waiting for our contract with them to be approved again. They're getting very limited information right now, so things are probably even worse than they look. Yay!
Edit: the last update I got from my area says about 20% of people tested for covid are positive, including close to 10% of asymptomatic people. Stay safe, everyone!
A home test won't. A PCR gives you some idea if you can get them to tell you the CT (cycle threshold) value of your test. The CT value corresponds to how many times the temperature cycled before the amplification signal of the sample became detectable. Lower CT values correspond to higher viral loads.
There's a lot of different strains going around, but it's a bunch of different subvariants of Omicron.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions
Definitely. Plus, you can absolutely get different CT values from two different testing platforms. Some PCR tests are more hands-on than others and the result can vary based on the quality of processing and on the settings that are used in the analysis software.
If only you could still get a used car for $5k. I had to replace my 20+ year old car due to a hit and run that absolutely destroyed it structurally. The best I could find on short notice (I didn't have a choice because I live too far from work to bike and public transit is a joke here) was $20k. It is older than my previous car was when I bought it and nearly 4x the price.
My cat is always either telling me he wants to go outside unsupervised, or that he wants my food instead of his.