COVID-19 CONVERSATION: No Masks Here
May 21, 2020 Leave a comment
A random observation this morning going out in Coral Gables near South Miami, many people going around in shops and stores without masks. We will have hell to pay in the coming weeks.
CONVID-19 CONVERSATION: Miami-Dade County Big Share of Infections and Deaths
May 21, 2020 Leave a comment
Miami-Dade County, which includes dozens of municipalities including the cities of Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Homestead, Hialeah, among others, has 13% of Florida’s population and 34% of proven Covid-19 infections and 28% of the state’s deaths.
Miami-Dade County is rushing to open and we will wait to see the consequences some 14 days in the future because of the current, recognized lack of extensive testing, tracing and isolation measures.
We are waiting for a final decision by the University of Miami on the Fall Semester on the manner and return of students. So far the information from the university has been a little ambiguous.
COVID-19 CONVERSATION: Not Trusting Florida Data
May 20, 2020 Leave a comment
The recent firing of the Florida government employee running the coronavirus public data base, because of her insistence of data validity and usability is evidence that the DeSantis GOP government cannot be trusted with the numbers and place loyalty about science.
Even before the removal of Jones, questions about Florida’s COVID-19 data had persisted. The Herald and a consortium of other news outlets sued the state over its initial refusal to release data about COVID-19 cases and deaths in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. The state finally began releasing data about cases in long-term care data in late April. And the state is inconsistent in how it chooses to represent key data points. Hospitalization data includes the aggregate number of people who have been hospitalized, not current numbers of people hospitalized, but the state replaced the overall case count with the number of “new positive COVID-19 cases.” Gov. DeSantis, who has touted the state’s low positive rate of cases as a justification for reopening the state, initially spoke of the positive rate among all cases, but has more recently focused on the percentage of positives among new cases, which has tended to be lower.
Florida Gov. DeSantis fires data critic for ‘insubordination’ | Miami Herald
COVID-19 CONVERSATION: Fl is Manipulating the Data
May 19, 2020 Leave a comment
No doubt, FL has been manipulating data to force an early opening. Miami-Dade County politicians have been following obediently along. The Miami Hearld reported that infections in Miami-Dade are 10 times! higher than those reported.
There are no easily available Covid-19 data published by local governments in Miami-Dade County. One may wonder on what basis Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables and others are making decisions, except from political pressures, business pressures and poor workers’ pressures. Are there objective criteria like Gov. Cuomo developed for NY.
Rebekah Jones, the manager of Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard has been involuntarily removed from her position because she refused to censor some data to, in her own words, “drum up support for the plan to reopen.”
Coral Gables Watch 