{"id":1319837,"date":"2020-05-07T23:32:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T05:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/mulhall-column-reading-the-covid-19-tea-leaves\/"},"modified":"2020-05-07T23:32:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T05:32:00","slug":"mulhall-column-reading-the-covid-19-tea-leaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/mulhall-column-reading-the-covid-19-tea-leaves\/","title":{"rendered":"Mulhall column: Reading the COVID-19 tea leaves"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"454\" height=\"620\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/08\/Mulhall-gpi-080919.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/08\/Mulhall-gpi-080919.jpg 454w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/08\/Mulhall-gpi-080919-220x300.jpg 220w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 454px) 100vw, 454px\"><\/p><figcaption><strong>Mitch Mulhall<\/strong><br \/><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText DropCap\">Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which in these parts was in early March, I have found the data-gathering practices on actual cases, hospitalizations, and deaths unhelpful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Everyone has.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In full disclosure, I had to take college algebra twice to get a passing grade.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">This is no slight on Mrs. Haines or GSHS, but you may want to take with a grain of salt anything I might write related even obliquely to math (unless, of course, it has to do with the Electoral College, where numerical reason always gets offended and leaves the room in a snit).<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row gspi-donation gspi-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">You\u2019d think that in the 21st Century, U.S. data gathering and reporting would be spit-polished by ubiquitous technologies like iPhones and wireless networks, but alas, the \u201cgarbage-in-garbage-out\u201d proposition still applies, perhaps now more than ever.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Despite my questionable math background, early on in the pandemic I dumped TV news in favor of Bing\u2019s COVID-19 Tracker to get a clearer picture about where and how quickly the virus was spreading.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">However, I soon gave up on Bing for some of the same reasons I soured on TV news.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Unlike the news, Bing\u2019s COVID-19 Tracker allocates a spot for recoveries. Like the news, they don\u2019t put a number to it \u2026 usually.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Even as I write, the map lists no recoveries in Colorado and most other states.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">I thought maybe recovery data gets protected by HIPPA or the Fourth Amendment, and perhaps some of it does, but some states do cite recoveries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Wyoming, for example, showed 596 cases earlier this week, 391 of which had recovered. Colorado, on the other hand, shows no recoveries but dutifully updates the total number of cases daily, which on Wednesday exceeded 17,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In fairness, KDVR did cite Colorado recovery statistics from CDPHE \u2014 for about three days. KDVR still leads every broadcast with a fuss over cumulative cases, hospitalizations and fatalities, but apart from an occasional human interest piece on a patient\u2019s hospital departure, there\u2019s little mention of recoveries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">It\u2019s not just the absence of recovery data that makes data on COVID-19 unhelpful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Last month I watched as a news anchor unashamedly reported on live TV that a spike in COVID fatalities was partially due to previously unreported deaths attributed to the virus. The gist of the story was something like, \u201cCDPHE found numerous COVID-19 fatalities from previous weeks, so they have been added to today\u2019s number.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">It\u2019s like they had no idea what to do, so they plugged them into the nearest slot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The tendency of fatality reporting to gin up foreboding has been well-understood since the days of Walter Cronkite, but this kind of sloppy data gathering turns a new leaf. Yet, Colorado and communities like Glenwood Springs base decisions on whether to end mask-wearing ordinances and lift restaurant restrictions on this data.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Modeling based on solid data \u2014 testing, active cases, hospitalizations, recoveries and mortality \u2014 strikes me as a valid basis for making decisions about precautionary measures, but that validity unravels if you ignore recoveries, dismiss the temporal integrity of deaths, and focus mainly on cumulative active cases, hospitalizations and fatalities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">That focus yields one grim picture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cHoly moly, Myrtle,\u201d you end up saying as you smack your forehead with the palm of your hand, \u201cThere\u2019s over 17,000 COVID cases in Colorado!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">View that number through the prism of recoveries and a different picture emerges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Of course, we don\u2019t see that picture because somewhere along the way someone decided recoveries don\u2019t matter as much as active cases and fatalities, or something like that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Last month Gov. Jared Polis referenced the use of cellphone metadata to analyze human movement and determine the efficacy of stay-at-home orders. He could certainly get his hands on recovery data if he wanted it \u2014 Fourth Amendment rights or not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">So, listen carefully, friends, whenever someone trots out COVID-19 statistics. The vision of what a hopeful future looks like is often in what the voices of public trust don\u2019t say.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\">Mitch Mulhall is a husband, father and longtime Roaring Fork Valley resident. His column appears monthly in the Post Independent and at postindependent.com.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/opinion\/columns\/mulhall-column-reading-the-covid-19-tea-leaves\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mitch Mulhall Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which in these parts was in early March, I have found the data-gathering practices on actual cases, hospitalizations, and deaths unhelpful. Everyone has. In full disclosure, I had to take college algebra twice to get a passing grade. This is no slight on Mrs. Haines or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1319837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-03 23:25:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1319837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1319837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}