vivster said:
SpokenTruth said:
Lying? No. Ensuring absolute accuracy? Probably not.
Nobody is fudging numbers. That narrative is silly as hell because it's too easy to verify and get busted for all kinds of state and federal fraud violations. Now numbers that get delayed, bulk uploaded (multiple days of tested reported at once), lost, duplicated (either accidentally uploaded twice or the same person getting multiple positive tests), false positives, false negatives, etc.... Those happen. But political number fudgery.....no.
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Dude, you talk as if the US had any kind of accountability. The narrative isn't silly, it's the US that is silly, where blatant and openly admitted fraud and corruption go unpunished.
Hell yes the US is fudging numbers, not necessarily at a national or state level, but they sure do and will continue to try their best to suppress numbers in any way possible.
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Indeed, remember this...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/20/florida-scientist-dr-rebekah-jones-fired-refusing-change-covid-19-data-reopen-plan
The scientist in charge of Florida’s Covid-19 database was fired on the same day as the state opened up for business.
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The controversy has parallels in Georgia, where the office of another Republican governor, Brian Kemp, was forced to apologise for presenting figures in that state’s public health database that falsely showed a downward trend in coronavirus cases.
Follow up:
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/14/876584284/fired-florida-data-scientist-launches-a-coronavirus-dashboard-of-her-own
In some ways, Jones' new portal for Florida coronavirus data looks a lot like the state health department's. But it has a few key differences that reflect just how contentious coronavirus data has become amid politicized arguments about whether it's safe for states to reopen. Case in point: Jones' dashboard has a map that shows which Florida counties are ready for the next phase of reopening. By her calculations, only two of the state's 67 counties at the moment meet the state's criteria for further easing restrictions.
Jones says she was originally tasked with building essentially the same type of dashboard for the health department's website in her role as a geographic information system manager — until it became clear what the results would show. "When I went to show them what the report card would say for each county, among other things, they asked me to delete the report card because it showed that no counties, pretty much, were ready for reopening," she says. "And they didn't want to draw attention to that."
Jones says a superior asked her to open up the data and alter the numbers so that the state's coronavirus positivity rating would change from 18% to 10% — and the state would appear to meet its target to reopen. She says she refused to do that manipulation and others she was asked to, and she was fired on May 18.
"To me, it did not read like some kind of political conspiracy or some higher directive," Jones says. "It seemed like people who expected when I brought in those results, the results to support the plan they had written, and they did not, they seemed panicked, and like they had to figure out a way to make the results match the plan."
And we all know what happened to Florida.
It probably happens here (Ontario) as well and in many other places. Following the numbers for so long sudden changes stand out. Curves suddenly becoming very smooth, or showing unnatural sustained drops after being on the level for a long time. Manipulation / changes in what counts of reported deaths, removing deaths, removing cases, moving new reports into the past (while not previously doing so to make it seem things are currently going down faster). Not that there's a directive from above to change the numbers, yet what does happen is a lot of cherry picking. Although some numbers go up, it's just a local outbreak, it was delays in reporting, but look these other numbers went down so we can go ahead with re-openings.
Most of it is incompetence, but there's also suspicious reporting going on. And then there's 'lazy' counting. Thanks to the magic healing powers of July 4th, reported deaths dropped by 50% on Saturday and the missing ones (260) haven't turned up yet.
Anyway, the reported cases are all under counted, and perhaps more now than before despite more testing. With the virus spreading more through the younger population, with less symptoms and likely also less interest in going to get tested... It's 99% harmless after all.
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