Ron DeSantis Master Thread

[Lurker]

No it is not more accurate.

Why not?

[biobook]

Just so we're clear: you agree that this is the proper way to report it in terms of accuracy, but you have a problem with FL switching their reporting methods because it may have been done to help DeSantis politically?

You're both right, but CV is a bit righter.

This may have been the proper way to report it from the beginning, but whether or not it had been proper then, it is highly improper to switch reporting methods in the middle of the pandemic.

Imagine you're speeding along at 70 miles/hr and your digital speedometer suddenly shows 113 kilometers/hr.  Wait... what? Am I speeding?  Sure, you can take out your calculator and do the conversion, but the middle of a highway isn't the place for that. 

I'm trying to come up with an alternative reason for the change, other than the attempt to make it appear that hospitalizations and deaths are decreasing.  Whether for DeSantis's political campaign or to for economic reasons, to encourage tourism.

[CountValentine]

Why not?

Both of them AFAIK are accurate. They eventually come up with the same numbers of deaths. Just at different times.

[CountValentine]

This may have been the proper way to report it from the beginning, but whether or not it had been proper then, it is highly improper to switch reporting methods in the middle of the pandemic.

Ding ding ding we have a winner. 

[Lurker]

You're both right, but CV is a bit righter.

This may have been the proper way to report it from the beginning, but whether or not it had been proper then, it is highly improper to switch reporting methods in the middle of the pandemic.

Imagine you're speeding along at 70 miles/hr and your digital speedometer suddenly shows 113 kilometers/hr.  Wait... what? Am I speeding?  Sure, you can take out your calculator and do the conversion, but the middle of a highway isn't the place for that. 

I'm trying to come up with an alternative reason for the change, other than the attempt to make it appear that hospitalizations and deaths are decreasing.  Whether for DeSantis's political campaign or to for economic reasons, to encourage tourism.

Your analogy is off, for a very important reason: the speedometer is giving you realtime data, but the deaths counts are giving you old (and mostly useless) data.

I agree that changing how data is presented in the middle of pandemic is generally ill-advised, and can even have catastrophic effects. However, there is no data in the death counts which will change anything for anyone, other than the media. It doesn't tell us anything about the trajectory of the virus that we haven't already learned from testing data (case count, positivity rate) or from hospitalization data (patient count, ICU admissions, length of stay).

Can you explain how a daily count of deaths is helpful, when the total number includes deaths from the previous 4 months, with most of them between 2-4 weeks old?

The "why" is obviously political, as are the complaints about the switch. Ultimately, the new way is more accurate and the proper way to do it. If there are no real-life consequences to changing the way we report the data, can we really complain that they are doing the right thing because it's politically expedient for them?

[CountValentine]

Your analogy is off, for a very important reason: the speedometer is giving you realtime data, but the deaths counts are giving you old (and mostly useless) data.

Now you have me confused. Deaths need to be reported then they are credited to the actual day they accrued under the new system. Do I have that right? If so the speedo is way off. 

[Lurker]

Now you have me confused. Deaths need to be reported then they are credited to the actual day they accrued under the new system. Do I have that right? If so the speedo is way off. 

Here's how it works. People die. It takes x amount of time for cause of death to be determined and recorded, and then x amount of time for those deaths to be sent in to the FLDOH.

Old system: FLDOH announces, "We received X number of death notifications yesterday with Covid as the cause." Those deaths could have occurred yesterday, or last week, or last month, or 4 months ago.

New system: FLDOH adds each death to the tally for the actual day the death occurred. The running total number of deaths attributed to Covid since the beginning of the pandemic goes up by x amount, which matches the number of death notifications FLDOH received the day before.

ETA: in case I was unclear, "x" represents a number that is always changing and never constant. It varies by day, location, and a ton of other ever-changing variables.

[CountValentine]

Here's how it works.

So the answer is yes. So the amount of people that died yesterday will be zero since not enough time to report. That speedo is not only not accurate but completely broke!!! 

So I understand this right. When the numbers showed they were doing better than the rest of the country they were ok with an inaccurate system as you call it. Now that they are doing worse than the rest of the country they want an accurate system as you call it. Ok that makes sense. 

[Lurker]

So the answer is yes. So the amount of people that died yesterday will be zero since not enough time to report. That speedo is not only not accurate but completely broke!!! 

What's broke? How is FL different from any other state in this regard?

So I understand this right. When the numbers showed they were doing better than the rest of the country they were ok with an inaccurate system as you call it. Now that they are doing worse than the rest of the country they want an accurate system as you call it. Ok that makes sense. 

Break down the data for me, please. When did the data show they were doing better than the rest of the country? What changed now, and how does changing the reporting system make them look better?

[CountValentine]

What's broke? How is FL different from any other state in this regard?

...but officer.
Speedo shows the speed you are going at that exact moment. It doesn't say last week you went 50 but wait we updated that to 60 but wait make that 63 but wait...

Break down the data for me, please. When did the data show they were doing better than the rest of the country? What changed now, and how does changing the reporting system make them look better?

Their figures (what ever they used) showed they were better than half the country. Now (recently) they lead the country. All of a sudden they want to change the way they report. Without knowing anything else you should suspect something is up.

[aygart]

...but officer.
Speedo shows the speed you are going at that exact moment. It doesn't say last week you went 50 but wait we updated that to 60 but wait make that 63 but wait...

The old number did not show this either. Over time it evens out so it must be that they really were better than the rest of the country.

[whYME]

Speedo shows the speed you are going at that exact moment.

The problem is in this case the speedometer is saying 120mph but 30 of those miles were actually driven the hour before and another 30 the hour before that

[CountValentine]

The old number did not show this either.

...and I said that many times. They both lag.

[biobook]

The problem is in this case the speedometer is saying 120mph but 30 of those miles were actually driven the hour before and another 30 the hour before that

Ok, you convinced me:  I gave a bad analogy...   

[biobook]

Epidemiologist Jason Salemi has been summarizing covid stats in Florida. 
Go to https://covid19florida.mystrikingly.com/
In the left menu -> Florida Focus
Then scroll down to graphs 10. and 12. where he illustrates the different appearance of the death rate if recorded by day of death or day of report. 

They two ways of graphing do become similar, eventually, so if you're interested in summarizing total deaths over the year, it's not such a big deal which you use.  But if you want to know whether deaths are falling or rising over the past week or two, you get very different views by using the two methods.

[Yehuda57]

On the day of the bombing in Afghanistan there were media folk tweeting stuff like, "900 people died of Covid yesterday in Florida, but you care more about the 13 in Afghanistan."

The issue is not how it is reported, but how the media has been manipulating it.

Did any other states change the way they report data mid pandemic?

[Lurker]

Epidemiologist Jason Salemi has been summarizing covid stats in Florida. 
Go to https://covid19florida.mystrikingly.com/
In the left menu -> Florida Focus
Then scroll down to graphs 10. and 12. where he illustrates the different appearance of the death rate if recorded by day of death or day of report. 

They two ways of graphing do become similar, eventually, so if you're interested in summarizing total deaths over the year, it's not such a big deal which you use.  But if you want to know whether deaths are falling or rising over the past week or two, you get very different views by using the two methods.

I love Salemi's stuff, and I've been using his charts since last summer. He's been taking FL's useless death data and charting it by date of death for well over a year now. I'm pretty sure he's on record complaining about the old way. If you look at some of his charts, you can see just how old the data was when announced the old way. IIRC, the vast majority of the deaths had occurred at least 2 weeks prior to announcement.

[CountValentine]

I love Salemi's stuff, and I've been using his charts since last summer. He's been taking FL's useless death data and charting it by date of death for well over a year now. I'm pretty sure he's on record complaining about the old way. If you look at some of his charts, you can see just how old the data was when announced the old way. IIRC, the vast majority of the deaths had occurred at least 2 weeks prior to announcement.

Look at the chart. It shows new system deaths are going down. Old system deaths are going up. That is why they changed. They don't give a rats *ss which is more accurate.

[Lurker]

...but officer.

"But officer" what? How does that make any sense? You're literally comparing them to the rest of the country.

Speedo shows the speed you are going at that exact moment. It doesn't say last week you went 50 but wait we updated that to 60 but wait make that 63 but wait...

There is no speedometer here. You want accurate data? Use testing and hospital stats.

Their figures (what ever they used) showed they were better than half the country. Now (recently) they lead the country. All of a sudden they want to change the way they report. Without knowing anything else you should suspect something is up.

What figures showed they were better? And better at what? And what are they leading the country in? You know none of this, but they changed something and the media shouted, so you assume they must be hiding something. Unless you can show me what actually changed, you're just another partisan hack making noise.

[Lurker]

Look at the chart. It shows new system deaths are going down. Old system deaths are going up. That is why they changed. They don't give a rats *ss which is more accurate.

It doesn't show anything going down. THE LAST 2 WEEKS ARE INCOMPLETE DATA!!! Anyone looking at that data to figure out what's going on with the pandemic is an absolute moron.