Florida Coronavirus update
Bottom Line: It’s been weeks since I provided one of these updates and there was one reason above all others for my decision to stop with them at the time. It had become clear that the daily data reported by the Florida Department of Health wasn’t reliable enough to warrant a daily dissemination of the information. As it turned out it wasn’t their fault. The Florida Department of Health is but a repository for the information. The issue was, and clearly still is, labs failing to report regular and timely information to the state. First, we learned numerous labs were only reporting positive COVID-19 tests. This artificially inflated the positive test rate. Then, with the help of the FAU School of Business, we learned that the daily reported coronavirus cases contained “newly diagnosed” cases that were often weeks old. As for the deaths – those are often even older news. Deaths reported in daily totals have included attributed deaths up to eight weeks prior. These problems reached a head yesterday when one lab Niznik, which tested in Broward, Miami Dade and Palm Beach Counties dumped 46 days' worth of testing at once inflating the daily totals thousands of cases and once again showing the flaws with timing of the reporting of data.
If these issues happened in a vacuum where the only thing that mattered is that the results were correct in the end this wouldn’t matter so much. As we know it doesn’t and unfortunately public policy impacting near all aspects of our society in South Florida are operating off of this data for decisions. Here’s what we know:
- Daily reported totals don’t necessarily reflect recent cases
- The positive test rate is inflated
- The peak of the pandemic in Florida passed over a month ago
Given those immovable facts we’re faced with several challenges in which South Florida is mired in Phase 1 reopening for our economy and our School Districts are denying taxpayers the classroom education they’ve paid for and continue to pay for in the name of pandemic. Time and again we’re told positivity rates must drop below 5% before schools will reopen or Phase 2 or 3 reopening's will occur within our economy. Here’s a question to consider. Is there a guarantee that will ever be the case? Not only are positivity rates artificially inflated with still no public health official able to tell you with certainty what the rate is but consider this if you’ve not been sick at any point during the pandemic. Have you been tested? I haven’t been. My wife hasn’t been. My family in Naples hasn’t been. If you aren’t sick why would you get tested? Yet, if we did that’d bring down the positivity rate wouldn’t it? Doesn’t that inherently illustrate the flaw with the concept of using it against the backdrop of artificially high data? If only generally sick people are getting tested and as long as even 5% of people tested with something have COVID-19, South Florida stays locked down?
There’s a part of me which thinks a million of us who are healthy should go get tests ASAP to illustrate how deeply flawed this made up concept has proven to be. More practically we must demand our public officials operate off of reality and serve our interests which they generally are not doing by denying us the ability to earn a living and have our children educated as promised.