If you've been following this blog since early covid days, you are aware I've been following the numbers. Mainly these are from Worldometer, but also from state health departments, Johns Hopkins, and general national news outlets and political commentaries.
A whole bunch of things stand out. Nearly everybody agrees on the shapes and timing of the numbers curves, increases, dips, new and higher increases in cases, the effects of immunizations, and the frustrations of EVERYBODY that the pandemic is ongoing for this long.
One particular graphic making the rounds made that point very clearly, stating self congratulations that the writer survived January because January was a very long year. Time has become so distorted, subjectively, that I hear people talk about this lasting three years when it's been just over two. I get confused myself some times, falling back on looking at my own vaccination record to verify it took a year to get them out, another part year of feeling freedom, marred at the end by the Omicron variant which makes us all susceptible to covid again. Just, this time, hopefully, less likely to get really sick and/or die if we're fully vaccinated. Vaxxed for short. And now, Omicron itself has a newly emerging variant, effects yet to be known. We want it to be OVER! We grow increasingly frustrated with the willfully unvaccinated who keep dragging this out, and all the political nonsense swirling around, muddying the mix of what should be a straightforward public health issue, and fearful of the newly revealed deep racial and political divisions in this country and their ties to Russian propaganda.
Oh yes, if you've missed that last part, you haven't been paying attention. For a while!
But back to numbers. While the graph patterns are agreed to, the numbers underlying them aren't. Each source of numbers has their own set of sources, some going or not going the extra mile to fact check who reports and how. The numbers themselves have become political. The motivations to change those numbers often become more important than the actual numbers. More on that later, but a new opportunity to lose track of the numbers recently presented itself: at home testing.
I'm sitting right this minute next to our set of four test kits which arrived yesterday in the mail. Should any of us start to feel "like it's a cold", we can whip one of these out and test ourselves for covid. These were free, part of the governmental project to send four kits to every address in the country which requested their set. The kits have also been made widely available through pharmacies & insurance companies, a way of allowing folks to test without waiting in long lines which may actually backfire by exposing those in the lines to the highly contagious Omicron. The issue with home testing is the unreliable reporting of the results. This is above and beyond the known variability in accuracy of the results of various kits and how those even vary depending on which day into symptoms- or before/after symptoms - the tests are taken. Positive results from several people I've spoken to, since they mostly do not get dangerously ill, simply mean they stay home for a while until they feel better, thus are likely less contagious. But report the results? Only if necessary. (Oops.)
But Florida really stands out as an anomaly. One could easily be led to thinking that Ponce De Leon's fabled Fountain of Youth is located there, for real. Now we know Governor DeSantis (DeSatan, DeathSantis, pick your nickname) is way out there on the right wingnut end of the spectrum. He's been trying to out-Trump Trump in craziness, manipulations, obstruction of covid protocols and safety, outright denial of its existence as much as possible. He's obviously running already for the 2024 Presidency.
Early in the pandemic he fired the woman who had been reporting accurate counts of covid case and death numbers. She still had contacts within the system and for at least a while more accurate numbers were being "leaked". The federal government has had to crack down and demand better reporting, and for a bit you could see it improve, aka case numbers reported were increasing. That's not to be mistaken for real improvement in covid handling or anything, of course. But word also went out that death certificates were to obstruct knowledge of covid death counts by any means possible. All those blood clots that severe covid produces that do so much damage to various organs, killing people, meant a rewrite on the death certificate to cause of death being the organ that failed without mention of its connection to covid. Clots in the lungs became pneumonia, in the brain became strokes, in the heart became heart failure, in the kidneys became kidney failure. If a clot in a limb killed off tissue then death was caused by gangrene. And on and on. Real opportunities for creative writing here. Covid isn't killing people there, nuh uh. All this other crap is. Covid becomes the comorbidity rather than the proximate cause.
If you can't tell any other way, just go into the charts of state reports and note two things. First, see how many new covid cases are reported each day. They are a little harder to fudge. Follow those for a few weeks, since we know deaths lag behind cases. You don't die the day you get sick, like you might the same day, say, you had a car accident or got shot. Then check other states with similar case-per-day rates, and see what their death counts are. Florida has been very high in cases, and tends to run about 3rd highest in the nation. But deaths? Similar states report deaths in the hundreds most days lately. Florida reports none or single digits most days.
It must be a miracle! Right?
Yep, the miracle of what the abuse of power can let you think you're getting away with.
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