AzDHS to Reduce COVID-19 Reporting Starting in March

 

The Arizona Department of Health Services (AzDHS) plans to change the frequency with which it reports COVID-19 statistics. Their statement about the changes is here.

The statement says, in part:

Starting in March, the frequency of reporting reflected on the ADHS COVID-19 Data Dashboard will shift to weekly. As a result, data on the dashboard will update each Wednesday starting March 2. Saturday, Feb. 26, will have the last daily update.

On one level it makes some sense to go to less frequent reporting. One thing I have complained about before is media taking a high daily number of infections and sensationalizing it, when they know or should know that cases can get backed up in the system causing outlier numbers. 

Going to a weekly report would address that. But then, so would a daily report of the seven-day trailing average.

They say they are making the change because infection rates are dropping, all the cool kids (34 other states, they claim) are doing it, and because "daily reporting requires a great deal of work on the part of hospitals, ADHS, and others."

But these reasons are at best questionable. For example it should not take a lot of work to make the daily updates if everything is automated, like it should be. AzDHS systems will still be getting reports from testing labs and hospitals. 

John Schuch (who according to his profile is a retired engineer who seems to have some knowledge about this topic) makes the same point when he says on Twitter:

Heavy workload? That is total bullshit. Hospitals run a report on their EMR database and seconds later the data is spit out and transmitted to the state where software compiles it and formats it for the webpage. What's more hospitals will STILL BE COMPILING THE DATA.

Will Humble (former AzDHS Director and current AZ Public Health Association Director) claims on Twitter that they are actually planning to report deaths only monthly "for political purposes." Gee, the Governor and his administration wouldn't make public health decisions for political reasons, would they?

I'm not sure where Will gets that information about monthly deaths reporting. The official statement says everything will be weekly. But he has a lot of insider knowledge about these things, so it's plausible.

All things considered, this doesn't sit right with me. This is our data and we should be able to see it daily if we want to. And I side with John Schuch that the workload excuse is not very convincing, which suggests there is some kind of hidden motive here, possibly a political one.

Also I worry that this is something of a marshmallow test situation. Like a year ago, they're calling the pandemic over prematurely when we could still have another wave. 

What will happen if there is another wave? Will they restore reporting to daily? I doubt it. 

That means I won't be able to use these daily reports to judge how conservative I should be about going places, masking, and so on. With this virus a lot can happen in a week—the case rate in early January was doubling every week.

So in the next wave, if there is one, I have to wait a week to find out the case rate has doubled? I don't like it.

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