Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Figures Lie and Liars Figure - Michigan COVID Numbers Edition

You can't keep a state in crisis mode if the data shows the crisis is being alleviated.

 So to fix that, you change how the figures are collected to shows there's a continuing crisis.

Crains Detroit: Commentary: Michigan's change in COVID-19 hospitalization rates renders past data useless

Timely and reliable data about COVID-19 in Michigan has been the cornerstone justification by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for just about every one of the restrictions she has placed on the economy, specific businesses and ordinary human movement for the past five months.

That's why a recent change in how the state of Michigan reports the number of COVID-positive patients occupying hospital beds undermines the last five months of data that has shaped Whitmer's extraordinary executive orders and the management of hospitals and nursing homes.

Around Aug. 4, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services started requiring hospitals to report their daily patient counts for both confirmed cases of COVID-19 and suspected cases.

The newly combined number skews all other previous data about hospitalizations, effectively rendering this key data point utterly useless for comparison purposes over time.

On Aug. 3, the last day that just confirmed cases of COVID-19 were counted, there were 460 people hospitalized for the virus.

As of Friday, the newly combined number of confirmed and suspected cases is 675.

On paper, that would look like a 46 percent increase in hospitalizations in just 11 days. That sounds alarming.

  It does seem alarming, and this on-paper manipulated increase has been used to both justify the continuing restrictions and keep people afraid that the contagion is unchecked and expanding and we need further restrictions as a result to "stop the spread".

Go read the whole thing, and note how deaths and hospitalizations have been on, and continue to be on, a steady decline, calling into question this new impetuous based on these skewed figured for further restrictions or rolling back the easing of restrictions, maintaining this state of emergency and keeping Gov Half-Whit as our unaccountable ruler.

1 comment:

Pigpen51 said...

This is the woman we are supposed to have respect for and follow willingly as she leads our state over the cliff? I wouldn't follow her to a swimming pool if I was on fire.
There is a petition campaign going on to attempt to force her to stop the shutdown. Is there any possible way that something like this could have any success? It seems that the people in charge of this,though definitely concerned and caring, are just doing something that has little chance of making any difference,no matter how many signatures that they gather.

pigpen51