Simple COVID question: How many new cases in NJ?

Well that escalated quickly. It started at Monday afternoon’s COVID press conference. Alex Zdan of News 12 New Jersey asked Gov. Phil Murphy: “Isn’t now the time for public disclosure for the administration to separate the positive cases that have occurred weeks or months ago from ones that have occurred over the last 24 to 48 hours? You’ve done it with deaths, why are you not doing it with positive cases to provide an accurate picture of the spread?”

To me, this is a simple and straightforward question.

To the governor, it was akin to having to explain Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.

“I’m not sure I understood the last question,” Murphy said.

Zdan then expounded on his question, noting that when Murphy announces the “new” positives for the day, some are actually based on old tests. Then Murphy and his team did everything but answer the question.

This prompted Kurt Siegelin of News12 to tweet the following, which is what pretty much every journalist aware of what happened was wondering: “If the Governor is not aware of what makes up the daily case report … I mean, the implications of that are stunning. Perhaps he misunderstood the question. I can’t comprehend that he understood the question and yet is/has been in the dark about old cases being reported as new.”

Yeah. I couldn’t comprehend it either. So I retweeted this, and then … and then things took an interesting turn when the governor’s senior advisor, Daniel Bryan, took to Twitter to respond. His answer only served to fan the flames. “To set the record straight here: The number of new PCR positive cases represents individuals with a positive PCR test reported in the past 24 hours. In rare instances (Eeesh.

See, here’s the thing: “Reported” cases are not the same as “new cases.” For instance, when the governor announces there are 5,000 “new” cases, it doesn’t mean those cases are necessarily “new.” It means they are being reported for the first time. Independent observers have broken down the data to show a significant number of “new” cases reported each day include “old” tests. Bryan claimed the number is less than 3 percent; others, like Woke Zombie, the Twitter handle of a data analyst, says the number is much higher. Obviously, this matters.

Bryan’s answer above didn’t exactly satisfy me. So I asked a further question to clarify. “This is not the answer to the question. From what I gathered, the question is: Are older cases being lumped together with more recent cases for the day’s “new” cases number? (Spoiler alert: They are.) Follow-up: Why?”

Bryan responded: “For those interested in facts over conspiracy theories, here is when the daily positive PCR cases are from: Every day we report out the # of new cases received in the previous 24 hrs. The vast majority of test results are received within days to at most a week or so...(median turn-around-time in NJ is currently ~2.27 days). At most, only a handful out of the thousands of cases reported daily are more than a few weeks old. These increases are related to actual increasing cases and not, in any meaningful way, a reflection of “old” cases.”

But then others in the Twitter thread posted actual numbers harvested from the CDC and the NJDOH. It certainly appeared to contradict Bryan’s statement.

All of the semantics are not academic; the numbers that the administration reports dictate how far along we are in combating the virus. Clearly, there is a lot of confusion here.

It is incumbent upon the governor and his administration to slowly and patiently show us all the numbers. Bryan screaming about “shoot first, aim later” reporting is not satisfactory when it comes to hard data. Show us the numbers. Pretty simple fix to this.

And when I say “show us the numbers,” I mean when the governor says there are “X number of new positive tests,” show us when those tests were administered. I can’t think of anything more simple.

This isn’t about “conspiracy theories.” It is about data. And if the governor wants the press to stop asking questions about this, well … just like 7th grade algebra: Show your work. I’ll repeat it again, for simplicity’s sake: “Dear Governor: When you say there are “X” number of new cases today, can you please break down that number by when the tests were administered. Again, again, again: Show us the numbers, and this problem is solved.”

UPDATE 1:40 P.M.: I received response from Bryan.”On 3/29/21 we reported 3,174 PCR cases. Of these, 59 were removed overnight following routine investigation (to drop duplicates and out of state resdients) leaving a total of 3,115. Looking at the specimen collection date for these 3,115 cases shows that 97% were collected within 1 week, 3% within 2 weeks, and I followed this up with more questions, namely “1) Is there anywhere I can see this info? Is it publicly available? 2) If no to the above, will it be made publicly available going forward?”

Bryan didn’t answer those questions, but did respond with: “This is a representative breakdown of how it usually looks. Don’t think we usually do this on a daily basis.”

After a little more back and forth, in which I asked Bryan to “open the books,” I was directed to ask any further questions to the Department of Health.