It's not the fact you are opening up. It's how you are opening up and the lack of personal responsibility of a subset of your population. Sure, it may get worse in other states or countries, but everything is a matter of scale at this point. Masks are now mandatory in parts of Ontario despite our death rate being lower then yours. Nobodies complaining the public for the most part is highly supportive of the safety measures. Different culture different reaction. Only time will tell which methods paid off and to what extent. Recent results don't look good in Florida and several other states.
COVID-19 data reporting by state of Florida is unreliable, raises too many questions https://www.palmbeachpost.com/opini...orida-is-unreliable-raises-too-many-questions “That lack of communication and data sharing between DOH and AHCA causes a headache for those who know the data well and who see the inappropriate use of DOH data as a proxy for active hospitalizations.” Florida has a data problem. While the rest of the world drowned in third-party, speculative and non-scientific coronavirus data at the onset of the pandemic, the Florida Department of Health (DOH) stood proudly and steady in its position as the single-point-source of information in the state. That monopoly over COVID data in the state is partly my fault. I worked very hard for several months to ensure DOH was the only authority over COVID-19 data, and since I was the sole creator and publisher of that data, I trusted its authenticity and accuracy above all else. I learned a hard lesson about data integrity when I was fired in May for refusing to manually manipulate that data at leadership’s request. Data is only as trusted as its keeper, and DOH’s credibility evaporated faster than dew on the grass in the Florida morning sun after news of my firing spread across the globe. A few weeks later, on the day Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the full reopening of K-12 schools in August, Scott Pritchard, the lead epidemiologist for Florida’s COVID-19 response since January, abruptly quit after 15 years of service. The Miami Herald cited a former DOH employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, who said Pritchard was afraid DeSantis would use him as a scapegoat once cases “started exploding.” Trust in DOH tanked -- also partly my fault -- and consequently, secondary and non-authoritative data resources have popped up left and right. Public distrust in the officials who are supposed to lead us opens up too many avenues for amateurs and pseudo-scientists to take advantage of the data hole by filling it with unreliable, unvetted and unsourced information. The public information sphere became flooded with, based on my experience at DOH, gross misuse of data. Still, there were other reliable state agencies pushing back against disruptive disinformation. The state Agency for Healthcare Administration (AHCA) emerged as a more prominent figure in publishing COVID data during the last several weeks, its data services established in April but growing in prominence only since June. AHCA tracks the number of available beds in all of its reporting hospitals (307 as of July 3). AHCA data tells us exactly how many ICU beds, isolation beds, pediatric beds, etc. are available in every hospital in the state, updated every 30 seconds, 24 hours a day. As the only state data available regarding hospital capacity, AHCA’s data should have been added to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard months ago, but never was. I was told the public data wasn’t “ours” to use. Two weeks ago, that data became an issue of intense controversy. That notoriety is probably partly my fault, too. Once I published AHCA data front and center on my new Florida COVID Action dashboard, the public began asking questions about it, demanding answers from the state about why political messaging wasn’t matching the state’s own data. As a government agency, its authority over data relating to hospitalizations should be unquestionable. After the governor’s unexpected intervention in hospital reporting, however, even that data elicits more questions than it answers. And during a review of the data others are publishing, including several colleges and universities publishing their own data supposedly based on AHCA data, myself and several other scientists found numerous inconsistencies with DOH case data, and far-fetched proclamations of how all-encompassing AHCA and DOH case data is. Much of the case data doesn’t match the AHCA data, and the AHCA data these third parties are publishing doesn’t match the data AHCA publishes themselves. Adding to the confusion, the DOH communications team revealed recently that some sort of actively-hospitalized case data will be published “alongside other publicly available case data”. But DOH has never maintained data on the number of cases actively hospitalized. They did not monitor admission and discharge dates, and would often only learn of a case hospitalization weeks or even months afterward. We had syndromic data from hospitals through the Merlin reporting system, but it was limited to key words listed in ER visit notes. When asked directly about the communications team’s announcement about adding active hospitalization data, the DOH epidemiologists confirmed that they’ve never had active hospitalization data for cases and would not be adding it to their daily reports. They added they did not know about and couldn’t speak to what data other agencies were publishing. That lack of communication and data sharing between DOH and AHCA causes a headache for those who know the data well and who see the inappropriate use of DOH data as a proxy for active hospitalizations. The misuse of DOH hospitalization data stretches from bloggers all the way to the New York Times. Taking the number of people hospitalized today versus the number reported yesterday doesn’t tell you how many more people were hospitalized in the last day -- it tells you how many reports of hospitalizations DOH received, which could include hospitalizations from cases back in March. The same is true of death data, as well. On top of the issues about data completeness and accuracy of conducting AHCA and DOH data, there remains a void of other data sets that are either not reported at all or reported incompletely. The state currently publishes zero data about testing and cases in state prisons. They also don’t publish data about testing, cases and deaths in jails. DOH stopped publishing demographic data about who’s being tested after firing me in May, so we have no idea if recent surges in cases by age, gender, race or ethnicity are truly spikes or if they’re proportional to the number of people being tested within those demographic groups. DOH has never published testing or death data by zip code, either. And they don’t publish dates of deaths, making it difficult to measure and monitor trends. Another black hole in data publishing centers on contact tracing, which DOH claims to be doing, but won’t publish any data on at all. Since publishing my dashboard, the state has tried to make my life harder by unannounced and abrupt changes in the reporting periods, data schema and publication modifications, and adding data ambiguities, like adding antigen testing data with PCB testing data to lower the percent positive during the highest spike of cases for any state to date. All of this amounts to highly disorganized and conflicting data that someone with no direct experience working with DOH wouldn’t know how to make sense of. Maybe that’s what they want -- to create confusion so they can blanketly dismiss any damning information as a misinterpretation of the data. Florida was once hailed as the gold standard in data transparency and accessibility. That was my plan. Now it’s seen as one of the most corrupt and inaccessible systems in the country. That is entirely their fault. If Florida is to come out of this pandemic stronger, they need the help of scientists like myself and those across the state. To do that, we need data. It’s time for Florida officials and step up fix the data problem they created.
As Florida sets records for Covid-19 cases, health authorities often fail to do contact tracing https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/health/florida-contact-tracing-coronavirus/index.html When Shaila Rivera and her new husband returned home from their honeymoon and tested positive for Covid-19, they expected a phone call from their local health authorities in Florida asking for a list of people they'd been near so that contact tracing could begin. The Riveras waited for that phone call. And waited. And waited. But the call never came. "I was shocked," said Rivera, a nurse who has since recovered from her bout with the virus. Despite claims that Florida traces every case of Covid-19, a CNN investigation found that health authorities in Florida, now the nation's No. 1 hotspot for the virus, often fail to do contact tracing, long considered a key tool in containing an outbreak. (More at above url)
Granted, it is not just about opening up, but how you open up. I agree. But saying Florida doesn't require masks is a bit disingenuous. All of the major metro areas require masks, to my knowledge. So there isn't mask requirement in Apopka, FL. There's no one really there anyway and they wouldn't listen to any state mandate regardless. Just like people in many California counties or Illinois counties are listening to any mandate. Did you see the California decree from the governor banning 4th of July celebrations? Click the video below to see how that worked out (ignore the tweet commentary which is irrelevant for this discussion). The point is this - people determine whether this pandemic fizzles out or grows anew. Governors don't. I'd like to - again - thank you for keeping a good discussion going. I never thought I'd see the day where I had a great conversation with you, and at the same time ignored obvious and rampant trolling from gwb. But these are strange times.
The state disagrees with her assessment of why she was let go, and her story has continued to change as the days have gone on. Suffice to say that I don't really pay attention to a disgruntled, fired employee when she speaks badly about her employer. Especially one who had a case of sexual harassment against her. I didn't believe it back when you posted stories about her weeks ago and I don't now.
Just checking - is our gubnor still winning? Even though he doesn't determine much - like uhhh putting restrictions in place or not, and enforcing them. Ya know like hmm speed limits. Seatbelts are a better example. Not many used them at all till they were recommended. Many more once seatbelt law was put in place but since it was enforced as a secondary offense applying after another infraction was cited, usage was up but not as high as it needed to be. Then once it became enforceable whether or not driver did something else like get caught speeding blow a stop sign etc, usage got to where it is nowadays in the high 80's low 90's percentages across most states.
I also appreciate a civilized conversation with you on a difficult topic, despite the P&R becoming a rather difficult environment in recent weeks. I have no real idea exactly why Florida and other states are struggling recently, and Canada's numbers suddenly got good. I have no idea how that will translate or sustain in the coming months.
The DeSantis administration called her all sorts of names, slut shamed her, and claimed she was incompetent. Within 48 hours of being fired she set up an alternative data portal that shows realistic Florida COVID-19 data -- so much for the incompetence claim. All of here claims on the time-line of data being removed deliberately from the Florida COVID portal as well as the deliberate "unannounced and abrupt changes" have been proven to be true. As outlined in the article - No media outlet in Florida trusts the DeSantis administration COVID portal data. The DeSantis administration has done everything possible to be less than transparent with data (as outlined in the article and many other media outlets). The Florida COVID portal went from being considered "the gold standard in data transparency and accessibility" to being "one of the most corrupt and inaccessible systems in the country" -- after the DeSantis administration politicized the portal to drive their re-open agenda. It is critical at the time of a public health crisis that the government is fully transparent with disease data - failure to do this will cause all people to distrust the government. No reasonable person trusts the DeSantis state government COVID data in Florida.
Thanks, man. When I posted the original post in this thread, I probably should have labeled it differently as those who have a narrative to push on this topic (not you) took it to mean I support the governor politically. I did vote for DeSantis (because the opponent was a complete lunatic) but might or might not vote for him again depending on more aspects than his virus response. What I did call out in the OP (what was supposed to be the point) was the hyperbolic manner in which the media was calling for the end of Florida back in the beginning of April, and how none of that materialized, or even came close to materializing. People pushing the Covid narrative immediately took the political angle on it, and referred to me as a Trump supporter, a DeSantis fanboi, blah blah blah...despite me clearly saying I won't be voting for Trump again (unless something changes radically which I doubt). A virus shouldn't be a discussion on politics. Yet here we are.
I'd say so, yeah. Florida is still open and people are going back to work. So yeah, he's winning. When and IF this changes, I might change my position. But as long as Florida is open for business and deaths aren't out of control, then it is a WIN. It is also considerably different than what the media forecasted we'd be like (see charts I've posted repeated). I'm sorry. Could you possibly put this paragraph word salad in something that resembles rudimentary English grammar and then restate it so I can understand precisely what your point is? I'd be happy to debate it, but I'd prefer there are no misunderstandings.