Q&A of the Day – Failures of the CDC and Florida Department of Health & pursuit of the truth
Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Twitter: @brianmuddradio
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Today’s entry: Hello Brian; I'm not in anyway disputing the fact that Sars-Cov2 is not infecting people. However; all the 'numbers' you're disseminating each morning are not true. Even the average daily death rate cannot be trusted. For many, many years, the CDC and Florida Department of Health have not been run well. Just like Florida's unemployment agency. No one knew how inapt they were until Floridians needed the system. Same is true for the CDC and FDH.
Bottom Line: There’s nothing like adversity to see the true character of someone. This is central in what I call the “Sliding Scale of Morality”. I created this example many years ago as a way to explain why people seemingly can go from good to bad. It holds relative to your example as well. The CDC, Florida Department of Health and the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity were all agencies which seemingly were operating effectively right along. Enter extreme adversity and we’ve seen what can happen as their flaws were exposed. In the case of the CDC it was trusting communication early on from the WHO which was holding the water for China. In the case of the Florida Department of Health, it was the absence of a system which would have flagged incomplete test data automatically from labs that were only reporting positive tests. And we’re all familiar with the debacle of the Connect System in place when unemployment claims spiked. For these reasons it’s easy to right off everything you don’t want to hear. This includes the information I regularly report. But this is also where I’d ask that you place trust in my reporting and take everything, I share in context.
As I’ve illustrated frequently using the CDC’s “excess data” weekly data, I’m able to cross reference all data reported and put it in proper context. And it’s empirical. We know how many people have died based on death certificates. We know how many usually would die adjusted for population changes, thus we know the real impact of the pandemic and can compare the empirical data with what was reported on specific dates. Though you might not want to hear it, and I don’t enjoy reporting it, COVID-19 cases count and deaths aren’t overreported in Florida – they’ve been underreported by approximately 2% for the complete test data we have in hand. Only the percentage of positive tests starting around July 4th have been exaggerated. As Governor DeSantis indicated – no other data was impacted.
Failures with the aforementioned institutions have created a fertile ground for those who are skeptical, fed up and want a different reality than what we’re living through. It’s completely understandable given months of negative adversity and no clear end in sight. Life’s greatest irony, in my mind, is that the more you know and learn – the more you realize how little how little you actually know. The moment one starts accepting narratives, is the moment one’s mind begins to close to the truth. Just because the CDC trusted WHO guidance early on doesn’t mean they’re blinding following it today. Just because the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity had a terrible processing system in place doesn’t mean everyone who was rejected for unemployment was wronged or that the system in place today isn’t more effective. And the Florida Department of Health not immediately catching incomplete testing data doesn’t mean all reporting aside from positive test rates isn’t trustworthy.
Ironically, the very premise that’s being used by many on the right to attempt to discredit honest, analytical reporting about the pandemic in Florida – in the name of a narrative, is akin to BLM’s narrative. BLM’s central argument to radically transform our system of government is that our country was founded on institutionalized racism due to slavery. Never mind that the country fought a war against itself to end it. Simply that it existed at all makes it all illegit in the minds of those Marxists. See the similarities here? This is what happens when one embraces a narrative rather than the truth. The only question is what the issue is one’s discussing. Conservatives who create narratives and operate on assumptions regarding the virus are no different than those on the left who do it with (insert issue here). I ask that we do better than this collectively.