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Day 121: COVID-19 Why Are States Obscuring the Data?
The screengrab above is from the Vermont Department of Health Weekly Summary of Vermont COVID-19 Data. It makes quite clear how residents of long-term care facilities are the majority of deaths from COVID-19 in that state. Similarly, the following chart illustrates the same thing, just adding that “Health Settings” include not only hospitals and long-term care, but therapeutic centers and behavioral health institutions as well.
Contrast Vermont’s data clarity with that of Minnesota. Although it is reported that 81% of Minnesota’s deaths occurred among residents of long-term care facilities, that is not easily demonstrated by the Minnesota Department of Health’s Stay Safe MN website. First, the only data that mention long-term care facilities is “case data,” not “death data.” Second, what death data there is is only disaggregated by race and ethnicity, not any other factors:
Congregant living?
Are LTC and Residential Behavioral Health “Non-Hospitalized?”
No correlation of deaths to anything other than race and ethnicity. Why is it important to correlate death to race and ethnicity, but not to residence in long-term care?
Of course, Minnesota is not alone in obscuring the relationship between infections in long-term care facilities and death. But why? When the data suggests that just getting your long-term care facilities infection control protocols in place would have reduced your deaths from COVID-19 by 80%, why wouldn’t you focus your energy there rather than house arrest for all residents? I get it that if you have a lot of infected but asymptomatic or minimally ill people going about, there is a greater challenge in protecting the residents of the long-term care facilities. But how is it less costly to impact the livelihoods of tens of millions rather than treat long-term care facilities more like Level 4 Bio labs?
The New York and Florida situations have been contrasted with regard to, in the one case, introducing infections into long-term care facilities, and in the other, putting emphasis on protecting residents of long-term care facilities as compared to other broader societal restrictions. As Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted, there does seem to be some correlation between the governing philosophies and the epidemic outcomes:
The first thing is focusing your efforts on the vulnerable, not controlling the whole of your society. Maybe you are obscuring the data so that it doesn’t make clear the consequences of your governing philosophy?
[Note: Links to all my COVID-19 posts can be found here.]
Published in General
Wouldn’t that involve government people talking to proles, and maybe even trying to appear human? That seems a bit much to ask.
I think our response is driven by two things: the older yet still somewhat dominant form of news dispersal: television. Then there is the newer form of information and news dispersal: social media.
Plenty of people in my county still listen and watch TV. They view “real doctors and scientists” on TV saying HCQ is untested and harmful. They vote Democrat and “their governor” is being protective of all life and all things holy. So to honor him, all we need to do in Calif is stay at home for a year or two.
If you offer up counter-arguments to their immense illogic, they trump your logic by saying, “But I am so afraid. The second and more deadly wave of COVID will hit in this summer – so we all need to remain afraid.” Then there is no ability to remain logical, because you would be seen as ruthlessly unconcerned about the Vulnerability of the Scared.
Credentials. This is what is needed for authority. This is what works for doctors, lawyers and scientists. The education systems is where these credentials are earned. The doctors and the lawyers ultimate credentials are issued by government through licensing. Some scientists are influenced by grants from various sources. Media and politicians simply have to make arrangements with credentialed authority with which they are in agreement. We are in the midst of a great divide and it is on display in all media forms.
Maybe for those not now working they will use this time to do some questioning and investigation.
I would not comply. Simply because it’s Unconstitutional and wrong. Revealing information about someone else who has done nothing wrong is evil, simply put.
That translates to a mortality rate of about 0.15% for people under age 70. So, how long do you want to keep them and the economy under lockdown? You mention no endgame, so how much more joblessness can we see before “the American public would be happy” isn’t true anymore? Even the Democrats are slowly admitting that a vaccine is their only endgame out of lockdown.
Yes the idea that some small percentage of people will die – even as that percentage is less than the mortality rate of the 1968 influenza outbreak – so all of society should shut the Feck down is ridiculous.
Especially given the havoc that shut downs are causing. The Calif doctor interviewed in the following article from the National Review is saying that his facility has seen as many suicides in these past few short weeks as normally occur in a full year!
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/a-years-worth-of-suicide-attempts-in-the-last-four-weeks-california-doctor-calls-for-end-to-lockdown/amp/?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR0b7LckKWidSm1KwkWp4xKKYMS5JlMuRzlCZxglZN5E6-XpCThSrYCyIWg
@mendel
California Doctor Calls for End to Lockdown
By Tobias Hoonho May22nd 2020
The doctor in charge of a Bay Area, Calif. trauma center said the state should end its lockdown orders after an “unprecedented” spike in suicide attempts amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’ve never seen numbers like this, in such a short period of time,” Dr. Mike deBoisblanc, head of trauma at John Muir Medical Center, told local station ABC7. “I mean, we’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks.” He added that he thinks “it’s time” to end the state shutdown.
Full article at link above
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