Officials say some states doctoring covid-19 data
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Public health officials in some states are being accused of bungling coronavirus infection statistics or even using a little sleight of hand to deliberately make things look better than they are.
In Virginia, Texas and Vermont, for example, officials said they have been combining the results of viral tests, which show an active infection, with antibody tests, which show a past infection. Public health experts say that can make for impressive-looking testing totals but does not give a true picture of how the virus is spreading.
In Florida, the data scientist who developed the state’s coronavirus dashboard, Rebekah Jones, said this week that she was fired for refusing to manipulate data “to drum up support for the plan to reopen.” Calls to health officials for comment were not immediately returned Tuesday.
In Georgia, one of the earliest states to ease up on lockdowns, the Department of Public Health published a graph around May 11 that showed new covid-19 cases declining over time in the most severely affected counties. The daily entries, however, were not arranged in chronological order but in descending order.
For example, the May 7 totals came right before April 26, which was followed by May 3. A quick look at the graph made it appear as if the decline was smoother than it really was. The graph was taken down within about a day.
Georgia state Rep. Jasmine Clark, a Democrat with a doctorate in microbiology, said the graph was a “prime example of malfeasance.”
“Sadly it feels like there’s been an attempt to make the data fit the narrative, and that’s not how data works,” she said.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s office denied that there was any attempt to deceive the public.
Guidelines from the Trump administration say that before states begin reopening, they should see a 14-day downward trend in infections. However, some states have reopened when infections were still climbing or had plateaued. States have also been instructed to expand testing and contact tracing.
The U.S. has recorded 1.5 million confirmed infections and more 91,000 deaths.
OVERALL TRENDS
Vermont and Virginia said they stopped combining the two types of tests in the past few days. Still, health officials in Virginia, where Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam has eased up on restrictions, said combining the numbers caused “no difference in overall trends.”
In Texas, where health officials said last week that they were including some antibody results in their testing totals and case counts, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday that the numbers were not being commingled. Health officials did not respond to requests for clarification.
Georgia’s Department of Public Health also regularly publishes a graph that shows cases over time, except new infections are not listed on the day they came back positive, which is the practice in many other states. Instead, Georgia lists new cases on the day the patient first reported symptoms.
That practice can shift the timeline of the outbreak and make it appear as if the state is moving past the peak.
Kemp spokeswoman Candice Broce insisted that the governor’s office is not telling the department what to do and that officials are not trying to dress up the data to make Kemp look better, saying that “could not be further from the truth.”
As for the May 11 graph, Broce said public health officials were trying to highlight which days had seen the highest peaks of infections. “It was not intended to mislead,” Broce said Tuesday. “It was always intended to be helpful.”
Thomas Tsai, a professor at the Harvard Global Health Institute, said the way Georgia reports data makes it harder to understand what the current conditions are, and he worries that other states also are presenting data in a way that doesn’t capture the most upto-date information.
Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said a lot of these cases are not necessarily the result of any attempt to fool the public. For example, she said, states may not have updated information systems that allow them to tell the difference between an antibody test and a viral test.
Still, if states are mixing a lot of testing numbers together, “you’re not going to be able to make good decisions about reopening and about what level of disease you have in the community,” Nuzzo said.
SENATE MEETING
Meanwhile in Washington, President Donald Trump met with Senate Republicans to consider, among other things, the next steps in the coronavirus response.
The private luncheon at the nearly closed U.S. Capitol complex was billed as an opportunity for Trump to thank senators for their work in fighting the virus outbreak and shoring up the economy, officials said.
But the hourlong session did not change the GOP position to hold off until June on a new round of virus aid for states and struggling Americans.
“We need to assess what we’ve already done, take a look at what worked and what didn’t,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., afterward. “We’ll discuss the way forward in the next couple of weeks.”
With new social distancing restrictions, the Senate gathering was held in a bigger room across the street from the Capitol rather than the regular only steps from the Senate chamber. Many senators were masked and seating was limited to three to a table.
Tuesday brought a full day of administration appearances on Capitol Hill. Earlier, Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin huddled with McConnell and House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy for a previously scheduled meeting.
They discussed the covid-19 response and the economy, said a person unauthorized to describe the meeting and granted anonymity.
Also Tuesday, Canada and the U.S. agreed to keep the border closed to non-essential travel until June 21.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that the border is a source of vulnerability, so the agreement will be extended by another 30 days. The restrictions were announced on March 18 and were extended in April.
“This will keep people in both of our countries safe,” Trudeau said.
Acting Secretary Chad Wolf said non-essential travel will not be permitted until the administration is convinced that doing so is safe and secure.
More than 4.8 million people worldwide have been confirmed infected by the virus, and about 320,000 deaths have been recorded, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University that experts believe is likely too low.
Russia and Brazil are now behind only the United States in the number of reported infections, and cases are also spiking in such places as India, South Africa and Mexico.
New hot spots emerged Tuesday in Russia, and the country recorded nearly 9,300 new infections in 24 hours, bringing the total to almost 300,000, about half of them in Moscow. Authorities say more than 2,800 people with covid-19 have died in Russia, a figure some say is surely higher.
Some experts argue that Russian authorities have been listing chronic illnesses as the cause of death for many who tested positive for the virus. Officials deny manipulating statistics, saying Russia’s low death toll reflects early preventive measures and broad screening.
INDIA CASES
In India, coronavirus infections topped the 100,000 mark and are escalating at the fastest pace in Asia, just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi further relaxed the country’s nationwide lockdown to boost economic activities.
“The challenges are huge, but a two-fold strategy would help reduce infections and flatten the curve,” said Rajmohan Panda, additional professor at the Public Health Foundation of India. “The focus should now be prioritized in low income settlements, with an emphasis of sub district level containment measures.”
Since Monday, states have further eased restrictions for industries, shops and offices, and reopened public transport, while the lockdown in the worst affected areas of the country — including a ban on interstate and international air travel — has been extended until May 31.
Meanwhile, in South Korea, researchers are finding evidence that patients who test positive for the coronavirus after recovering aren’t capable of transmitting the infection and could have the antibodies that prevent them from falling sick again.
Scientists from the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied 285 covid-19 survivors who had tested positive for the coronavirus after their illness had apparently resolved, as indicated by a previous negative test result.
The so-called re-positive patients weren’t found to have spread any lingering infection, and virus samples collected from them couldn’t be grown in culture, indicating that the patients were shedding non-infectious or dead virus particles.
The results mean health authorities in South Korea will no longer consider people infectious after they recover from the illness.