Before revision:  Assuming that individuals were tested based solely on a predefined risk of being infectious implied the absolute case numbers reflected prevalence, but turned out to be a poor predictor  .
After revision:  Assuming that individuals were tested based solely on a predefined risk of being infectious implied the absolute case numbers reflected prevalence, but turned out to be a poor predictor , consistently overestimating growth rates at the beginning of two COVID-19 epidemic waves .