A new directive from the Trump administration has cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention out of the loop for data from hospitals treating patients with COVID-19, a move which could have significant effects on what information about the pandemic is made public and how it is presented and used.
The instructions also explicitly bar hospitals from reporting to the CDC in addition to HHS: "As of July 15, 2020, hospitals should no longer report the COVID-19 information in this document to the National Healthcare Safety Network site," the document explains, referring to the CDC's system.
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In other words, for hospitals to receive federal aid, including access to one of the few known beneficial drugs for treating COVID-19, they will have to comply with the administration's data directive.
Of course the Usual Suspects will used this to further the "anti-science" argument against Trump and all of us.
ReplyDeleteAs for the move itself, I wonder how much good it will do. I've tried to keep on top of what's going on, but the data is utter crap. I'm sure you've seen the stories that here in Florida, there are labs reporting 100% of their tests are positive, which seem incredibly unlikely. The state data site raises more questions than it answers.
There's no source that seems trustworthy and complete.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad they sandbagged the CDC. I hate the constant lies and misinformation
from too many sources. I now go by the sources not tied to the MSM in any way.
For example I used the rioters as free lab rats and watched where the Whuflu
spiked over time. Sure enough it was in the riot happy cities. So #1: Avoid crowds.
There is lots of information coming out of Europe that indicates strongly that few
people under 60 become very ill and younger school age kids rarely catch or carry.
So #2 and #3: If older than 60 stay away from people who don't wear masks or distance themselves. School age kids near you aren't a big worry.
Lastly and very important: wash hands often and well and keep them away from your face.
The UN can go too, along with its sister WHO.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you are right, John. But, in stats, even if your numbers are good your conclusions cab be drastically wrong.
ReplyDeleteExample: we can observe the weather and Mary. We notice that when it rains, Mary is sad. The conclusion is that rain makes Mary sad. But, upon further investigation, we find that it isn’t the rain that makes Mary sad. We find that Mary is a gardener, and when it’s raining she can’t work in her garden.
In your Covid/peaceful protest scenario, you make the very dangerous assumption that the pandemic is real and propagating as a real virulent disease would.
An alternative hypothesis: the virus, much like the protests/riots - spike along political lines too. The virus is most active and perceived as most dangerous in shitlib cities. The worst race problems are also most prevalent in the pozzed liberal cities too. The guys driving this panic are the same morons involved in the Russian collusion hoax and several other efforts to to impeach the POTUS. As the Si Graybeard points out, even the good guys are cranking out bad numbers with this thing.
Having said all that - I disagree with the politicos getting between the CDC and the hospitals. Those guys HAVE to work together. This is not an organization problem, it’s a people problem. Trump needs get serious about draining the swamp. Some of the people involved in this should be doing time. Some need to be made into examples as warnings to the others. He also needs to do something serious about the mass media and the fake news.
You cant do valid data analysis if you don't have access to the raw unfiltered data. The problem is that the people entering the data are being influenced to enter faulty data. Garbage / Garbage out. The WH sees the CDC as a filter and wants to do it's own data analysis as a check on the possible corrupt system. Too many sources and consolidators of the data and no clear definitions of categories. Add to it that the media keeps pushing garbage stats such as number of Cases without further explanation instead of a more meaningful Stat like 7 day moving average of hospitalizations.
ReplyDeleteIf you think the CDC data is garbage, wait until we get election results.
ReplyDelete