State DPH Throws Curve with Changed Reporting Methods
It has been impossible to accurately report on the Georgia health statistics for Covid-19 impact for days. Consequently, I stopped issuing diaries to this series. About a month ago, I sent two emails to DPH administrators asking for certain reporting changes be made to put meaningful context and important demographic data into the public record issued twice daily by them. Within two weeks, I was happy to see percentages rather than only raw numbers charted, and ethnic breakdown of cases in a state that has a significant minority of AfAms and Hispanics, both of which I had requested. Progress!
But now this:
Death counts and other essential figures DPH publishes on COVID-19 have ticked up and down as the state changes the way that it reports them. While the state has added to the metrics it publishes, it has stopped running others and shifted its method of counting cases. This has confused ordinary Georgians as they decide whether Gov. Brian Kemp was right to begin reopening the state’s restaurants, movie theaters and hair salons.
In the past week alone, DPH rolled out a new data dashboard that added bar and pie charts. But they deleted a daily count of completed tests, making it difficult for the public to determine if Georgia is meeting a key White House criteria for reopening.
The kind of changes highlighted in that last paragraph do not add to our understanding of the virus; nor does it aid in adding information needed to fight future pandemics; nor does it reduce the noise vs. the message ratio on which public behavior depends; finally, nor does it contribute to the wisdom that should guide political decisions to remain shut down or to begin opening up. What does it mean for reliability and credibility of tracking maps that show the pandemic progress in terms of new cases, hospitalizations, and hot spots where death rates are alarming?
After all, Gov. Kemp, like Pres. Trump, claims such decisions will be based solely on facts and science. The truth is, the overriding effect of the alterations in reporting Georgia health statistic has produced increased confusion. Increased confusion causes increased fear in populations living under the administration of governments that make unannounced and un- or ill-explained changes to the methodologies they use to create public information meant to inform, calm, and guide it. Honesty requires that we remember that a dominant and highly dangerous characteristic of many state and certainly our national response to SARS CoV-2 pandemic has been — and remains today — misinformation.
Please allow me to remind readers that the sole purpose of the Covid-State-by-State Group is to aggregate and amass factual, statistical, and official information on the individual states’ responses to the pandemic in one place to create a living history whose purpose is to provide a library for researchers to use, particularly for current and future diarists writing about the Great Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020. How can our ambition be realized when. . .?
Much of it (the changes) is now published in a format that makes it difficult for researchers to use.
For more exploration on the implications and consequences of Georgia’s “amendments” to its reporting protocols:
‘Confused and scared’: Georgians frustrated over shifting virus data
Amid conflicts over outbreak’s path, Kemp weighs Georgia’s next steps
However! The remainder of the diary presents and explains and attempts to correctly interpret the Georgia DPH new methodology. And there is factual reason on which to base optimism in the face of the pandemic. Read on!
*****************************************************************
- Total Tests 140,223
- Total Confirmed Cases 25,274
- ICU Admits 1,122 (this number is confusing, but I believe it represents total number of patients currently in ICU)
- Hospital Admits 4,948 (probably current total number as of today)
- Total Deaths 1,052
- Case Rate/100,000 No longer possible to report for State, only County by County General Summary: Top 5 counties in number of new cases reported show marked decline to statistically near zero in the last 5 days. Peak new cases throughout the State occurred 16 April with 801. There has been a steep decline in number beginning 21 April (685 cases) to today, 29 April (12). The 7-day moving average has fallen from 700 to 222 since April 20.
- Case & Death Curves The cases curve has flattened beginning this week; the total deaths curve ascent is overall flattening. That means that while the total deaths continue to mount up, the rate of death is slowing (fewer/day). A sharp drop in daily deaths has been ongoing since April 16th when 21 deaths were reported to today, when 2 deaths have been reported by noon April 29th.
- Racial Breakdown AfAms comprise about 36% of all cases, divided nearly equally by sex, more among females. Whites comprise about 30% of all cases, again split nearly evenly, but slightly more males. Note: Missing and unknown ethnic information is absent for about 30% of cases.
- Healthcare Workers Comparing the impact on healthcare workers to the general population is not possible in terms of accuracy from the way data is reported by DPH. However, it can be seen that the impact on those in daily contact with infected people is visibly greater than incidence of cases in the public in general. Data significantly shows the impact on females, who dominate healthcare workers and AfAms, who more frequently work in support staff positions, particularly in more populous lower-wage positions like housekeeping, reception, and clerical. Housekeeping assumes particular dangers from exposure to virus. Of the 2.4K healthcare workers documented, more than 81% are female. Of the 2.4K workers, approximately 41% are AfAms, and nearly half of them are female. Deaths have not been reported at all.
*************************************************************
Discussion
The following are my interpretations and opinions of the implications and consequences that the data lead to.
- Both cases and death rates have sharply declined in the last five days or so. Therefore, the governor’s decision to reopen GA is understandable.
- The data suggest that symptomatic Covid-19 has indeed declined impressively.
- The data do not suggest that asymptomatic Covid-19 has done so. The truth is there is and will remain no data until testing ramps up significantly.
- Data trends in GA indicate that the healthcare system has not been overwhelmed. Therefore, optimism about the waning danger from pandemic is understandable.
- Data trends make no future predictions about a second wave of infection from SARS-CoV-2.
- Thus, one must conclude from the facts that hand washing, wearing masks, physical distancing, and stringent disinfection of public areas must continue until a) data from ramped up testing demonstrates the virus is no longer present; b) research and data show that recovery from Covid-19 confers immunity; c) therapeutic interference controls symptoms of severe infections; and d) vaccines prove effective and the population becomes widely immunized.