Coronavirus Outbreak

[ken_sylvania]

What they are doing is only reporting deaths for the day that they occur, not when they are reported like everyone else does. What that produces is the downward pointing tail on the graph above. That is because it takes about a week for a death report to work it's way through the reporting system in Florida. So if 500 people actually died in Florida yesterday, the report will only show a tiny fraction of that number, only those deaths that happened yesterday and worked their way through the reporting system. As time goes on they will eventually get reported but then entered into week-old data. The effect is to make it look like deaths are always declining, when that isn't at all the case.

Lets assume they are actually doing this, eventually these deaths have to be reported right? so the data is getting reported and even if they delayed every death by a week, would it not still reflect an upward climb at some point?

The graph would probably always trail downward at the very end because the most recent couple of days on the graph don't include complete data. This would give a perpetual illusion that the worst is past and things are getting better, even if things are actually getting worse.

[Ken]

What they are doing is only reporting deaths for the day that they occur, not when they are reported like everyone else does. What that produces is the downward pointing tail on the graph above. That is because it takes about a week for a death report to work it's way through the reporting system in Florida. So if 500 people actually died in Florida yesterday, the report will only show a tiny fraction of that number, only those deaths that happened yesterday and worked their way through the reporting system. As time goes on they will eventually get reported but then entered into week-old data. The effect is to make it look like deaths are always declining, when that isn't at all the case.

Lets assume they are actually doing this, eventually these deaths have to be reported right? so the data is getting reported and even if they delayed every death by a week, would it not still reflect an upward climb at some point?

When they finally get around to reporting them they get inserted into the graph back a week or two from the end. So when the public sees the graph it always looks like deaths have turned the corner and are on steep decline when that is utterly not true and an artifact of how the data are being reported. Also, for deaths that are too far delated in reporting, they don't include those at all in official reports because those are "revisions"

And yes, it is deliberate. They have said as much in some of the reporting that I have seen. I'll post a link

[Ken]

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronaviru ... story.html

Use www.outline.com to open the link if you are blocked by the paywall.

Florida changed how it reports COVID statistics. The result? The pandemic appears to look less severe, with fewer recent deaths

CINDY KRISCHER GOODMAN AUGUST 13, 2021

Just as a highly contagious new delta variant sent Florida into a vicious COVID-19 surge, the state Department of Health changed the way it reports cases and deaths attributed to the virus.

The most dramatic example is that Florida’s daily death count had been trending upward since the end of June, but with the recent adjustments made by the state Department of Health, the number of deaths due to COVID appeared to decline dramatically over the past week. At least on paper.

Deaths in Florida are increasing but still below the large numbers seen during the summer spikes in 2020, experts say. A COVID tracker created by The New York Times shows as of Aug. 10, Florida recorded a seven-day average of 141 deaths from the virus, a figure larger than 32 other states.

In contrast, according to the website maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention using the information provided by the state Department of Health, Florida’s seven-day average as of Aug. 10 is only about third of that — 58 deaths.

“For Florida to move to a new system of reporting is technically correct, but in actuality, it is problematic because it distorts data,” said Bill Ku, a data scientist and former researcher at Columbia University who now runs covid19odds.com. “Deaths are not going down, and a lot of people are going to jump to the wrong conclusion about how they should carry on with their life.”

[Soloist]

On the flip side of this, its totally possible to skew the data by posting it the day it was reported too... I'd rather the data speedily reported on the day it happened instead of late entries to prior days a week ago or all the entries for the week collected and reported making a spike. Both skew it and effect policies.

[ken_sylvania]

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronaviru ... story.html

Use www.outline.com to open the link if you are blocked by the paywall.

Florida changed how it reports COVID statistics. The result? The pandemic appears to look less severe, with fewer recent deaths

CINDY KRISCHER GOODMAN AUGUST 13, 2021

Just as a highly contagious new delta variant sent Florida into a vicious COVID-19 surge, the state Department of Health changed the way it reports cases and deaths attributed to the virus.

The most dramatic example is that Florida’s daily death count had been trending upward since the end of June, but with the recent adjustments made by the state Department of Health, the number of deaths due to COVID appeared to decline dramatically over the past week. At least on paper.

Deaths in Florida are increasing but still below the large numbers seen during the summer spikes in 2020, experts say. A COVID tracker created by The New York Times shows as of Aug. 10, Florida recorded a seven-day average of 141 deaths from the virus, a figure larger than 32 other states.

In contrast, according to the website maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention using the information provided by the state Department of Health, Florida’s seven-day average as of Aug. 10 is only about third of that — 58 deaths.

“For Florida to move to a new system of reporting is technically correct, but in actuality, it is problematic because it distorts data,” said Bill Ku, a data scientist and former researcher at Columbia University who now runs covid19odds.com. “Deaths are not going down, and a lot of people are going to jump to the wrong conclusion about how they should carry on with their life.”

So a random data scientist claims the reporting system is problematic. I don't see anything in this article where the state says they are intentionally distorting the picture. When you say "they have said as much" are you referring to reporters or to the Florida officials responsible for the reporting method?

[ohio jones]

Why are you so obsessed with Sturgis?

I'm not particularly. The moderators here criticized me last week for calling it a "super-spreader event" prematurely before we had any evidence that was the case. So now I'm just circling back to check in and see how things are going.

Only one of us. If the data supports calling it a super-spreader event, then it's reasonable to do so. During the event, treating a prediction as a fact is at least as misleading as what Florida is doing.

[Ken]

So a random data scientist claims the reporting system is problematic. I don't see anything in this article where the state says they are intentionally distorting the picture. When you say "they have said as much" are you referring to reporters or to the Florida officials responsible for the reporting method?

There has been a lot of reporting about this with lots of arguing back and forth. And endless twitter discussion of the topic from various Florida-based data experts. Here is one example:

https://climate.law.columbia.edu/conten ... a-governor

[nett]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08 ... on-parties

Amazing how far the mainstream narrative has shifted. I wonder if we'll see the mainstream shift away from supporting vaccines before the end of the year.

[Szdfan]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08 ... on-parties

Amazing how far the mainstream narrative has shifted. I wonder if we'll see the mainstream shift away from supporting vaccines before the end of the year.

Did you read the article?

The study demonstrates the power of the human immune system, but infectious disease experts emphasized that this vaccine and others for COVID-19 nonetheless remain highly protective against severe disease and death. And they caution that intentional infection among unvaccinated people would be extremely risky.

The researchers also found that people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated.

Still, Thålin and other researchers stress that deliberate infection among unvaccinated people would put them at significant risk of severe disease and death, or the lingering, significant symptoms of what has been dubbed Long Covid. The study shows the benefits of natural immunity, but “doesn’t take into account what this virus does to the body to get to that point,” says Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington, Seattle. COVID-19 has already killed more than 4 million people worldwide and there are concerns that Delta and other SARS-CoV-2 variants are deadlier than the original virus.

[nett]

[/url]ser_id=10401]
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08 ... on-parties

Amazing how far the mainstream narrative has shifted. I wonder if we'll see the mainstream shift away from supporting vaccines before the end of the year.

Did you read the article?

The study demonstrates the power of the human immune system, but infectious disease experts emphasized that this vaccine and others for COVID-19 nonetheless remain highly protective against severe disease and death. And they caution that intentional infection among unvaccinated people would be extremely risky.

The researchers also found that people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated.

Still, Thålin and other researchers stress that deliberate infection among unvaccinated people would put them at significant risk of severe disease and death, or the lingering, significant symptoms of what has been dubbed Long Covid. The study shows the benefits of natural immunity, but “doesn’t take into account what this virus does to the body to get to that point,” says Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington, Seattle. COVID-19 has already killed more than 4 million people worldwide and there are concerns that Delta and other SARS-CoV-2 variants are deadlier than the original virus.

Yes, and I understand that they had to have a lot of disclaimers in there to not face the rage of vaccine zealot crowd. It's more interesting that they're now publicizing something that directly contradicts previous reports.

All of their disclaimers are without substance. The IFR of COVID is still .01% without vaccination, I wouldn't call that "extremely risky", nor would anyone else who understands absolute risk.

The Pfizer vaccine's efficacy wanes after 6 months or less. Natural immunity does not. There are no major studies on even midterm vaccine efficacy in a population with natural immunity. The Cleveland Clinic had the most rigorous study on reinfection so far, and they found 0 reinfections, regardless of vaccination status. Tough to make a statistical claim when you have to divide by zero...

Regarding the alarmism aka “doesn’t take into account what this virus does to the body to get to that point,” Most of the early reports of brain damage, and long term systemic damage turned out to be baseless. COVID is just not that serious in the vast majority (~95%) of the population. I had it, so did most people I know. I fully recovered, and now I'm apparently immune.

If you're a relatively healthy person, and haven't gotten COVID, the risk of having a serious case is basically nonexistent, so you might as well stop worrying about it, and go about your life. If you happen to catch it, use common sense, avoid contact with others who may be high risk, take care of yourself, and the odds are you're come out the other end of it immune to COVID (and it's current strains) for a very long time. The same cannot be said of the vaccine.