California keeps key virus data out of public sight
SACRAMENTO » California Gov. Gavin Newsom has from the start said his coronavirus policy decisions would be driven by data shared with the public to provide maximum transparency.
But with the state starting to emerge from its worst surge, his administration won’t disclose key information that will help determine when his latest stayat-home order is lifted.
State health officials said they rely on a very complex set of measurements that would confuse and potentially mislead the public if they were made public.
‘More uncertainty’
Dr. Lee Riley, chairman of the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health infectious disease division, disagreed.
“There is more uncertainty created by NOT releasing the data that only the state has access to,” he said in an email. Its release would allow outside experts to assess its value for projecting trends and the resulting decisions on lifting restrictions, he wrote in an email.
Newsom, a Democrat, imposed the nation’s first statewide shutdown in March. His administration developed reopening plans that included benchmarks for virus data such as per capita infection rates that counties needed to meet to relax restrictions.
It released data models state officials use to project whether infections, hospitalizations and deaths are likely to rise or fall.
As cases surged after Thanksgiving, Newsom tore up his playbook. Rather than a county-by-county approach, he created five regions
and established a single measurement — ICU capacity — as the determination for whether a region was placed under a stay-athome order.
In short order, four regions — about 98% of the state’s population — were under the restrictions after their capacity fell below the 15% threshold. A map updated daily tracks each region’s capacity.
Swift changes
At the start of last week, no regions appeared likely to have the stay-at-home order lifted soon because their capacity was well below 15%. But within a day, the state announced it was lifting the order for the 13-county Greater Sacramento area.
Suddenly, outdoor dining and worship services were OK again, hair and nail salons and other businesses could reopen, and retailers were allowed more shoppers inside.
Local officials and businesses
were caught off guard. State officials did not describe their reasoning other than to say it was based on a projection for ICU capacity.
Complex formula
State health officials relied on a complex formula to project that while the Sacramento region’s intensive care capacity was below 10%, it would climb above 15% within four weeks. On Friday, it was 9%, roughly the same as when the order was lifted.
“What happened to the 15%? What was that all about?” asked Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and infectious-diseases control expert at University of California, San Francisco. “I was surprised. I assume they know something I don’t know.”
California Health and Human Services Agency spokeswoman Kate Folmar said officials are committed to transparency, providing
twice-weekly updates on whether regions can relax restrictions. But she said projected ICU capacity is based on multiple variables, including available beds and staffing that change regularly.
“These fluid, on- theground conditions cannot be boiled down to a single data point — and to do so would mislead and create greater uncertainty for Californians,” she said in a statement.
First Amendment Coalition Executive Director David Snyder urged the state to change course.
“The state is wielding extraordinary power these days — power to close businesses, to directly impact people’s livelihoods and even lives — and so it owes it to Californians to disclose how and why it makes those decisions,” said Snyder, whose California public interest organization fights for greater government openness.