Let's see what @Tsing Tao's hometown paper has to say today about DeSantis hiding Covid data. Florida should stop withholding important COVID information Public information is key to fighting complacency. https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/20...olding-important-covid-information-editorial/ As the delta variant gripped Florida this summer, Latinos and younger adults saw what was happening, and they jumped to get vaccinated. That finding, by The South Florida Sun Sentinel, shows what happens when people are armed with the facts and equipped to make informed medical decisions. And it’s another lesson of how state government has put Floridians at risk by withholding key COVID-19 data. The Sun Sentinel discovered the trend after analyzing newly-released data that it has to pry out of the state. Two of the groups most hesitant to be vaccinated — 25-to-44 year-olds and the Latino population — led the state in new vaccinations as the delta variant swept Florida. The newspaper found the trend became especially apparent in South Florida, as younger people and minorities sought vaccinations at higher rates than the state as a whole. Many of those getting shots were vaccine holdouts shaken by seeing friends and family get sick and die. As hospitals filled up, and as the daily death counts continued to climb, a push began in July that saw nearly 3 million people getting inoculated amid the delta wave. Across South Florida, Latinos were getting shots at two or three times the level of whites. Younger adults were getting their first doses at four or five times the levels of those 65 and older. Public fears over the highly contagious variant shocked a state that had grown complacent. “It requires continuous education,” said Sama Fombu, a family nurse practitioner in Miramar. “I talk to people at grocery stores and gas stations ... wherever I can.” As inoculations in Florida trend downward, the summer experience is a cautionary tale about downplaying the pandemic and hiding the numbers. As the Sun Sentinel detailed, Florida’s vaccine rollout tapered off after the initial clamor for vaccines in January and February; by June, Gov. Ron DeSantis had all but stopped events to promote the vaccines, and by the first week of July, Florida’s vaccination rate plunged to its lowest level since the vaccines became available. And while vaccinations in Florida lagged the national average, the state dropped further into complacency as delta began to spread. The lesson is that COVID still poses a formidable risk to Florida given that nearly seven million people here ages 5 and up remain unvaccinated, with children and young adults remaining the least-vaccinated age groups. Last week, fewer than 48,000 first doses were administered, compared with more than 216,000 in late August, reflecting the intransigence of many Floridians to join the vaccinated. The Sun Sentinel also exposed how Florida’s restrictions on the release of COVID-related data have undermined the fight. The newspaper obtained the data as the result of a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Health, which announced in June it would no longer release detailed, daily COVID reports. Those records were instrumental in tracking trends in real time, giving local policymakers a snapshot of conditions in their communities and a valuable tool for managing the outbreak. Imagine how many more holdouts might have gotten the jab earlier had the state continued to release the detailed reports, enabling the government to marshal its resources and target its public messaging campaigns. Still, the Sun Sentinel’s report is valuable given that the pandemic is still here. It should build pressure on the DeSantis administration to release more relevant COVID data. And it underscores the need to be prepared for the next public health crises.
Obviously the DeSantis administration does not give a damn about protecting children -- nor does it plan to publicly support the vaccination of children. Florida ordered about 90,000 COVID-19 vaccines for kids. Utah ordered at least 109,000 Florida’s COVID-19 vaccine orders were less than other states, including states smaller than Florida https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus...lorida-covid-19-vaccines-for-kids-utah-orders Florida has reportedly only ordered enough COVID-19 vaccines to vaccinate 3% of the state’s child population, according to The Tampa Bay Times. Florida officials said they ordered 90,000 child-size doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. But this is considerably less than other states, including Texas, which preordered close to 1 million doses of the vaccine, The Tampa Bay Times reports. And California ordered 860,000 doses, which would vaccinate about 13% of the state’s children. For more perspective, Utah ordered an initial shipment of 109,000 pediatric doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Utah Department of Health. Utah plans to place orders every week from here on out to make sure the nearly 300,000 Utah children get the vaccine. Dr. Andrew Pavia, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at University of Utah Health and director of hospital epidemiology at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, said Utah has seen a good number of vaccinations for kids so far, per the Deseret News. “It is a really great start. In just one week, with still fairly limited places where people can get their kids vaccinated, we’ve vaccinated 17,000 children or almost 5% of the eligible kids,” Pavia said. He said it is “great news that the vaccine is being embraced enthusiastically.”
Here's some fun maths for y'all... Of the 109,000 members of the forum, through 4.7 million posts so far, @gwb-trading holds the current record of having 0.008% of all total posts on the forum. GWB, do you have at least one shot of the vaccine? Hehe!
Would be interesting if we could split out the different diseases and understand if the reporting methodology has changed in any way. I am reminded of a chart I saw recently that someone was trying to show supporting the fact that shoplifting in San Fran is on the downturn because the number of thefts is declining - until people dug in to find that it is declining because the number of thefts being reported was changed and cops aren't accepting the reported thefts below a certain threshold.
Right. Whine about death numbers being low because of "fudging" but cheer about high case numbers - they don't get fudged.