formerly present wrote:
"Gosh, these Covid-19 numbers here in Georgia and Florida are making us look kinda bad--and we have elections to win! What to do, what to do...
"Hey, *I* know! Let's stop reporting the numbers!"
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-data-disappearing-some-states-even-amid-delta-surge-n1277715
I can't speak to what Florida is doing, but I'll comment on Georgia.
Yes. The DPH stopped providing a spreadsheet of long term care facility data. They stopped this when Georgia's cases were ~250/day. There were not a lot of cases at that time. In addition, nearly 100% of residents aged 75+ have received at least one shot. With cases out of control now, they should make this report available again. I vaguely remember prison data, but don't have any information on it. I assume the report is not available for the same reason the long term facilty information is no longer on the website.
All Covid related data for prisoners and long term care facilities are included in the data provided by the DPH website. It makes for a good headline, but the GA DPH is not hiding the horrendous job Georgians have done in handling the virus,
In fact, the DPH recently they have added an infographic that compares the COVID cases among the vaccinated and unvaccinated in Georgia in hopes of showing people the benefit of getting vaccinated.
It shows that since Jan 1st:
0.56% of people who have been vaccinated have had a COVID breakthrough case.
0.02% of vaccinated residents have been hospitalized for ANY reason (includes non-COVID related reasons)
0.003% of vaccinated residents have died from COVID
It shows this data in tabular form as well as in a graphic with a large circle representing the number of vaccinated Georgians, a very small dot representing hospitalizations of the vaccinated (any reason), and a tiny speck representing vaccinated residents who have died of COVID. They created this graphic for the idiots who don't understand the protection of the vaccine.
They also include a pie chart contrasting the number of postitive cases since Jan 1st among vaccinated (25,040) and unvaccinated (598,353). And one showing deaths among vaccinated (168) and unvaccinated (6,722).
In addition, There is a great bar graph showing the number of cases among the vaccinated vs. unvaccinated per day from June to August. Quite a stark visual contrast.
Yes. GADPH did stop posting the long term facilities report and perhaps the report on prisons; however, they have added information as well as updated the scope of their data and visualizations on their daily status and vaccination reports. Cases, hospitalizations, ICU numbers, Ventilator usage, bed usage, deaths, testing, etc. are all still reported.
As for how Georgia is doing in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic? Horrible. As I've stated before, Georgia has a three-headed monster that has resulted in extremely low vaccination rates. We have a relatively high population of Trump-supporters, African-Americans, and white evangelicals. These three groups have contributed immensely to our low (43% fully) vaccination rates. Because of this low vaccination rate, we are experiencing very high COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
I have seen improvements in the African-American community in regards to getting vaccinated. It has been a late push, but our numbers have improved. This push has been led by the predominantly A-A churches (something not seen in to a high degree in the predominantly white churches). The other two groups (of which there is overlap) have improved slightly from early in the Spring, but a large segment remain steadfast in their decision to never get the vaccine. Now that at least Pfizer has received authorization, perhaps they may jump on board. We can only pray (pun intended).
Georgia's number are really bad. We bottomed out at 250 cases/day (day of report) in late June and are now above 8,000/day (day of report). Hospitalizations are at all-time high levels, deaths are rising.
Children are really driving the cases. In June we were below 30 cases/day for 0-17 year olds. Now we are over 2,000/day for that group. That is more than double the cases during the January surge.
Georgia is doing poorly, but if we are hiding data in order to make things look better, we are doing a terrible job at it.
