Treatment center afflicted
At a residential treatment center near Prescott Valley, 42 teens along with 12 staff members have COVID-19. Their families are worried.
It’s amazing what a day of reflection and 24 hours of brutal public exposure can do.
The state has suddenly decided not to fire the university scientists, after all — the ones whose models suggest that it’s not yet safe to reopen Arizona.
“We’re pleased to announce an ongoing partnership to continue providing models,” a state Department of Health Services spokesman said on Thursday.
No word on whether he was grinding his teeth as he said it.
University epidemiologists were informed on Monday evening that their services were no longer needed. This, just a few hours after Gov. Doug Ducey announced his plan to begin reopening the state this week.
The universities’ models — created by 23 researchers from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona — have projected that the only way to avoid a dramatic increase in coronavirus cases is to wait to reopen at the end of May.
But Ducey, with Republicans ready to revolt and a president itching to reopen the country, apparently didn’t want to hear it. So the scientists were sacked.
Shortly after his Monday announcement that he’s accelerating the reopening of barbershops, hair salons and restaurants, DHS notified the universities’ scientists that they would no longer be needed for modeling the coronavirus just now.
And that they would be cut off from access to confidential state data they need to continue their projections of how many people would sicken and die.
“We have been asked by Department leadership to ‘pause’ all current work on projections and modeling,” S. Robert Bailey, DHS bureau chief of public health statistics, wrote in the Monday email to the modeling team. “We realize that you have been, and continue to be working very hard on this effort, so we wanted to let you know as soon as possible so that you won’t expend further time and effort needlessly.”
DHS Director Dr. Cara Christ downplayed the dumping, saying the university scientists could be called upon to
make further projections next fall when flu season arrives. For now, she said, the state will rely on the models produced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Models that, conveniently enough, the public is not allowed to see.
The story blew up on Wednesday as it should when a governor, via his health director, essentially muzzles the bearer of bad news. The universities’ team, meanwhile, vowed to continue working on its models and to release them publicly.
By Thursday, state health officials were in full damage control mode, spinning as fast as they could to revise history — as if they were only trying to spare the universities from further work.
Spare them, during the worst global pandemic in more than a century.
“Understanding the demands on their time, we let them know that we were putting the modeling project on pause until we could bring them back to assist with modeling COVID-19 resource requirements during the influenza season,” DHS spokesman Chris Minnick said, in a written statement.
“Since then, the universities and team members have expressed a willingness to continue doing this work. We are grateful for their dedication and we look forward to an ongoing partnership.”
It was a right move, even if awkwardly done.
Simply put, the governor got caught trying to muzzle the scientists predicting a rather significant chance of rain on his parade.
Ducey had it right early on when he vowed that science would guide his decision making as he drives the state through this catastrophe.
I don’t envy the governor. He’s got to consider both the threat in opening up the state and the threat in remaining closed.
He’s got a president up for re-election who desperately wants to reopen the country, a party that is leaning on him hard to reopen the state and a team of university epidemiologists who are warning him to go slow.
It’s instructive to see which one got left in the ditch.
Until, that is, the public found out it.