A data hotel where all the data flows in …

Yesterday, Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported that hospitals are being told to not send data about their virus caseloads to the CDC. Instead, they are to send it to the Department of Health and Human Services, which has hired a private company to handle the data. This comes after the nasty guy proclaiming high death numbers are a hoax and various GOP governors are trying to issue fake lower numbers. Wrote Sumner:

The White House effort to gain control of coronavirus data looks suspicious because it is suspicious. …HHS has built a new data hotel. All the data flows in … and what happens next is entirely up to Trump.

That was followed today by Sumner reporting the change has happened and the fears are justified. The CDC site disappeared for a while and when it came back had last week’s data. And the HHS data is … not visible to the public.

Information provided to the National Healthcare Safety Network was displayed as soon as it was updated, in real time. This led to some errors being displayed to the public, as mistakes, or badly formatted submissions, could generate errors that were instantly visible.
…
Unlike the CDC data, the HHS database that is now taking in the information is not visible to the public. That means not just unavailable to the casual observer, but also to anyone who wants to research, provide projections of trends, or double-check information coming from leadership at the state or federal level. It also means that thousands of city and county health officials have lost their direct access to their own local data.

The HHS says the new system will offer better display and analysis. Soon.

The COVID Tracking Project tweeted that their data comes from the states, not the feds. Their website is here.

Leah McElrath tweeted some alarming numbers along with a link to an article at Business Insider:

Asymptomatic rate ≈ 40%

Chance of asymptomatic transmission ≈ 75%

Not good.

Wear a mask.



Tying health insurance to a job (which Obamacare lessened a bit) means when lots of people lose jobs lots of people also lose health insurance. Joan McCarter of Kos reports that Families USA estimates over the last four months 5.4 million have lost health insurance. During a pandemic. And the nasty guy is still trying to get the courts to kill Obamacare.

I’ve mentioned a few times the lingering damage the virus may cause. Ronald Brownstein tweeted that if the ACA is killed insurance companies would declare those who survived the virus now have a pre-existing condition that would disqualify them from coverage.



Lauren Floyd and others at Kos came up with a list of 22 questions for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (I’ve heard some are calling her Cruella DeVos). The questions cover such things as what are federal rules in various situations and who is going to pay for implementation of the rules. Examples: What steps should a school take if a student tests positive for the virus? How do schools pay for additional staff and cleaning supplies for surfaces that need to be cleaned frequently?

22 questions. DeVos hasn’t answered any of them.



Dartagnan of the Kos community has been listening in on a social media group of parents in his area. The parents are a mix of Dems and GOP, though they don’t sound like the type to demand schools reopen or else. All of them would sacrifice their own lives for their kids. They are debating about how their schools will reopen and whether all the precautions are enough. Dartagnan ponders this scenario: A child is infected at school and a teacher or family member becomes sick and dies. Of course, such news will flash across social media instantly. The school will close again, at least long enough for a quarantine and deep cleaning. And the parents, who might have gone back to work, will be furious. Right before the election.

They’re going to take out that fury on those who did nothing, who offered no financial assistance to either ordinary Americans or the schools where they send their children. Those who offered no help or guidance--just a stupid, mindless and insensitive exhortation to fully open the schools, and the consequences be damned.

And here comes Moscow Mitch wanting to put conditions on the next round of relief money to make sure schools open. He justified it saying, “We can't have a normal country unless kids are in school.” Then he blathered on about parents can’t get back to work while kids are still at home.

Correction, Mitch, we can’t have a normal country while the virus is raging and you’re not doing a damn thing about that.



I’ve mentioned the United States Postal Service has a new top guy appointed by the nasty guy. Not surprisingly he has implemented some changes that will supposedly save money, but will slow down mail delivery. I’ll let you wade through the details. This has two effects, which may be unintentional (I doubt it), but would delight every Republican. First it makes the USPS a bit less competitive compared to the private companies, such as FedEx. Second, it slows down mail while Democrats are calling for vote by mail. In Michigan, and no doubt in many other states, there is now a big fight over whether mailed ballots must arrive by election day or postmarked by election day.

A commenter pointed out that even if a person drops a ballot into a mail slot well before the final collection, with these new rules it may not be postmarked until the next day.

So, hand carry your ballot to city hall. Well before election day.