Wednesday, July 22, 2020

More Covid Discrepancies

It seems that the DeSoto Parish Sheriff's office had lokind into the number of covid cases found in the parish and found some discrepancies. KTBS 3 reports:
MANSFIELD, La. – The DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office is the second agency in Northwest Louisiana to adjust positive COVID-19 numbers because of duplicated numbers from the state.
The sheriff’s office on Monday said the total number of cases has been adjusted to 386, down from 491 last reported.
“It has come to our attention that many recorded cases in our parish are duplicated,” the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post. “This could be caused due to individuals being tested multiple times after first testing positive.”
This is the second parish in Louisiana that has had to adjust the numbers of cases due to multiple tests on the same patient.  The Louisiana Dept of Health is counting each test as a new case, when in fact, some people who test positive initially need a follow-up test to return to work.  If that second test is positive, they will need additional testing.  Some people are being counted multiple times.

By my math,  LDH is reporting 21% more cases in DeSoto parish that actually exist.  If the smaller parishes are finding that the LDH numbers are wrong, inflated by a significant amount, then what does that bode for the statewide numbers?

If these numbers are used to make decisions, then we should at least demand that the numbers accurately reflect the number of cases in Louisiana.  Not the number of positive tests.

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