by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
When it comes to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, the story is in the numbers, and it changes daily.
We are used to hearing how many new infections are in a local area, or a state, or the nation. Every day there are stories about the numbers of ICU beds that are available in given areas for serious COVID patients, and which areas are experiencing shortages of life-saving equipment such as respirators - and how many they are short. We are informed of the number of tests being given, as well as how many people are still waiting to be tested. And we hear the fatality numbers.
The United States response to the pandemic has overall been a tragedy of errors, but the one thing we could rely on was that we have been kept informed of the numbers - and that has been thanks to the efforts of the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Amid all of the national embarrassment of our nation's abysmal response to the extreme medical emergency, we knew that we could rely on two things: Dr. Anthony Fauci and the CDC.
Now Dr. Fauci, the Trump's administration's one truth-teller, appears to have been sidelined, and the collection of the national and state numbers from hospitals has been abruptly taken away from the CDC and given to a new political authority within the Department of Homeland Security where it appears that the information can be more easily manipulated and controlled.
Yesterday it was reported that Trump has asked governors to send national guard members to hospitals to insure that they are sending the numbers to Homeland Security and not to the CDC. Also yesterday the CDC abruptly pulled its coronavirus numbers' dashboard down from its website.
As of now it looks as though there will no longer be a reliable set of numbers by which the public can judge for itself the extent of the pandemic or its level of danger. From this point onward information will be more strenuously filtered through the Trump administration before it is available for public consumption.
If a new reporting system was needed, (and many medical personnel are openly saying that it was not needed), changing the system in the middle of a pandemic is certain to cause confusion and lessen the quality of the data that are reported.
Donald Trump and his administration view the pandemic as a political crisis rather than a health crisis, and they know that if they can control the numbers, they will be able to control the narrative. Yes, the pandemic will rage on, but the public will have much less knowledge of how bad it is.
And while ignorance may be bliss, it can also be deadly.
Citizen Journalist
When it comes to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, the story is in the numbers, and it changes daily.
We are used to hearing how many new infections are in a local area, or a state, or the nation. Every day there are stories about the numbers of ICU beds that are available in given areas for serious COVID patients, and which areas are experiencing shortages of life-saving equipment such as respirators - and how many they are short. We are informed of the number of tests being given, as well as how many people are still waiting to be tested. And we hear the fatality numbers.
The United States response to the pandemic has overall been a tragedy of errors, but the one thing we could rely on was that we have been kept informed of the numbers - and that has been thanks to the efforts of the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Amid all of the national embarrassment of our nation's abysmal response to the extreme medical emergency, we knew that we could rely on two things: Dr. Anthony Fauci and the CDC.
Now Dr. Fauci, the Trump's administration's one truth-teller, appears to have been sidelined, and the collection of the national and state numbers from hospitals has been abruptly taken away from the CDC and given to a new political authority within the Department of Homeland Security where it appears that the information can be more easily manipulated and controlled.
Yesterday it was reported that Trump has asked governors to send national guard members to hospitals to insure that they are sending the numbers to Homeland Security and not to the CDC. Also yesterday the CDC abruptly pulled its coronavirus numbers' dashboard down from its website.
As of now it looks as though there will no longer be a reliable set of numbers by which the public can judge for itself the extent of the pandemic or its level of danger. From this point onward information will be more strenuously filtered through the Trump administration before it is available for public consumption.
If a new reporting system was needed, (and many medical personnel are openly saying that it was not needed), changing the system in the middle of a pandemic is certain to cause confusion and lessen the quality of the data that are reported.
Donald Trump and his administration view the pandemic as a political crisis rather than a health crisis, and they know that if they can control the numbers, they will be able to control the narrative. Yes, the pandemic will rage on, but the public will have much less knowledge of how bad it is.
And while ignorance may be bliss, it can also be deadly.
1 comment:
An MIT study claims actual number of cases of Covid-19 is 12 times the number of reported cases. Also 50% more deaths. See, https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/medical-advances/505409-coronavirus-cases-may-be-widely-underreported
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