My wife told me about the story yesterday and swore it meant that covid data would be reported directly to the White House and was done for the purpose of filtering and permitting public health data to be manipulated prior to the election. After reading the article (there’s another article that ran in the NY Times I’d like to read but am paywalled) I’m not certain this is the case or that we’ll see a miraculous drop in covid cases reported and/or fatalities due to ‘reinterpretation’ of data. I must, however, concede the timing of this seems to suggest that is indeed the intent.
There’s no question that it’s the intent. The administration started its war on data and science on January 20, 2017, when it started attacking climate science data and began pushing out climate scientists across all federal agencies. This is a continuation of that pattern, and don’t be surprised if the data begins manipulating economic and jobs data in the near future, if they haven’t already.
There’s an op-ed on the Insider website. The layout kinda sucks - you have to scroll down to get the meat of the content that’s teased in the headline, but it’s good to know that some people are paying attention.
I just hope it’s not too late now. But after November, it will be too late unless Trump and the entire Republican party can be voted out.
As far as I’m concerned this means from here on out the Covid-19 numbers reported are unreliable and will only reflect things that make the president look good. Further it will be used to ignore the disease, so numbers will be on the increase while we are told we are winning.
Those history books on the shelf are always repeating themselves.
The reporting of *actual cases hasn’t been all that reliable to date, i don’t imagine it will be much different
You don’t care if it gets worse?
The way I see it, we are all getting it at some future point. As long as hospitals aren’t overrun and we continue to slow the spread so that hospitals AREN’T overrun, the actual reporting of cases doesn’t do me any good.
*unless of course a miracle vaccine shows up in the next 6 months
There’s no doubt they will try to manipulate the numbers. We’ve seen that happen at the state level in Georgia and Florida.
But it’s going to be hard to hide the fact that hospitals are reaching capacity.
With unrelated respiratory ailments, of course.
Because there are things to be learned from statistics. Actual infection rate, actual percentage who are asymptomatic both broken down by age. This can lead to more effective isolation strategies and maybe even treatments. We don’t even know why some are asymptomatic while others die or have severe symptoms lingering for months.
You don’t think we have enough data? We have had entire states infected at this point …
Or what has changed regarding any of your strategies in the last couple months?
Treatments have almost zero bearing on the data that the CDC was putting out regarding infection rates and confirmed cases.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not bashing the CDC, or any strategies. I am just dubious that any reporting changes anything.
Without knowing how many are asymptomatic, we have no idea how to re-open safely. There’s a vast difference between 10% and 50% being asymptomatic. We don’t know how long the asymptomatic are contagious. Look how cases have exploded since ending lockdowns. Obviously,a large number are asymptomatic.
The whole point of reporting to the White House is to hide the facts.
Here’s your answer.
Then why do it? The claim is that they are improving the reporting process, which presumably helps our public health system. The alternate claim is that they intend to interfere with the reporting process, which presumably harms public health, in an effort to improve Trump’s reelection chances.
Neither of which supports the idea that reporting doesn’t change anything.
This is utterly ridiculous and defeatist. Why will everyone in the “greatest country in the world” have to get it when not everyone in China had to get it, not everyone in Canada, Australia, Europe (not even Italy and Spain, and they were early hotspots), etc.? Is it your opinion that the USA is that much of a shithole, a failure of a nation that we can’t get something like this under control?
Grrr. This kind of defeatism makes me so angry and will lead to literally millions of deaths.
My mom the Trumpist points to it as evidence that the CDC has been lying. 
Is there anything to stop the hospitals from reporting to CDC as well as the new data collector? In an NPR story this morning, one doctor said that it was hard to reach any conclusion other than the WH was going to try to fudge or hide data. The fact that this was done with almost no notice and the $10,000,000 contract to collect the data was done on a no-bid basis makes me highly skeptical. How long before the connection is found between the data collection company (I can’t recall the name) and the Trump campaign/family?
I believe the White House is ordering hospitals to bypass the CDC.
Evidently, (the data) it was needed when we were reporting that this deadly disease was going to kill 3-5% of our entire population. But between over-reporting *possible cases and causes of death, over-blowing statistics (which could be seen as erring on the safer side) the wedge was created between those who don’t want to needlessly suffer economically and those that think any opening at all will result in the extermination of the human race.
I have seen both sides screech, it got old, I quit listening.
This is almost entirely wrong, but it’s obvious it’s not worth arguing with you.
If you think we’ll do better with this pandemic without good data, it’s really clear that it’s not worth engaging. Plus, I’d probably just draw a warning anyway.
Keep your head in the sand. I hope you and your loved ones stay safe and healthy, regardless of the amount of misinformation you’ve heard.