Some interesting notes from Harris County (TX)

[ezsoil]

My wife serves on the disaster response team for a county that surrounds Houston... today all of surrounds counties teams met with the Harris county officials to coordinate the resources...there were some interesting notes that she took.

They are getting a handle on how to treat patients and are becoming much more efficient. Fewer of the Covid admissions are needing ICU care than in the past three months.

The Texas Medical Center is running at the same levels it usually does ... they had 71 Level 1 ICU beds empty as of Friday and another 817 available with a few modifications... the issue isn't beds, its staffing. The surrounding counties have over 400 level 1 ICU beds available.

They were told what is skewing the numbers is they are not releasing people who no longer need hospital care but may still be contagious. This means that seniors who came from a nursing home who don't have another place to go must stay in the hospital until the have two negative tests. The same applies to the homeless. These two categories account for 31 percent of the covid beds. That is why the number of tests is exploding. A typical patient is tested at least 7 times before they are released. That is what accounts for the rapid rise in positive tests without an accompanying rise in Hospitalizations. While the number of hospitalizations are up, the system is not at the critical levels that are being portrayed. They are reporting the tests as one homogeneous number and does not reflect a separate record.

my wife felt they were on top of the situation and she felt the biggest issue is the staff is tired and need a break. They said they were beginning to phase in the help from the feds and from the surrounding counties.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

That is very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Len2003]

Some of that is happening in Mississippi too. People are getting stuck in the hospital because they need 2 negative tests to get released back to their nursing. Of course, the issue is that these patients still require staff, a room, and PPE, ect., so it puts a strain on the system. Staffing is also an issue. There are physical rooms available but no nurses to staff all the beds. We've had to close beds down at my place of work due to lack of staff.

 

[ronpolk]

My wife serves on the disaster response team for a county that surrounds Houston... today all of surrounds counties teams met with the Harris county officials to coordinate the resources...there were some interesting notes that she took.

They are getting a handle on how to treat patients and are becoming much more efficient. Fewer of the Covid admissions are needing ICU care than in the past three months.

The Texas Medical Center is running at the same levels it usually does ... they had 71 Level 1 ICU beds empty as of Friday and another 817 available with a few modifications... the issue isn't beds, its staffing. The surrounding counties have over 400 level 1 ICU beds available.

They were told what is skewing the numbers is they are not releasing people who no longer need hospital care but may still be contagious. This means that seniors who came from a nursing home who don't have another place to go must stay in the hospital until the have two negative tests. The same applies to the homeless. These two categories account for 31 percent of the covid beds. That is why the number of tests is exploding. A typical patient is tested at least 7 times before they are released. That is what accounts for the rapid rise in positive tests without an accompanying rise in Hospitalizations. While the number of hospitalizations are up, the system is not at the critical levels that are being portrayed. They are reporting the tests as one homogeneous number and does not reflect a separate record.

my wife felt they were on top of the situation and she felt the biggest issue is the staff is tired and need a break. They said they were beginning to phase in the help from the feds and from the surrounding counties.

Are you saying that one person could count as multiple positive results?

 

[msudog4]

I wonder that too

 

[Trojanbulldog19]

Depends on which number you look at some are counting and tracking cases or particular people. Name etc goes into a database if you get tested again it goes with that record as an updated test for you. In some numbers that may not being done and it's just individual test numbers but it should be by the cases.

 

[ezsoil]

Are you saying that one person could count as multiple positive results?

that's exactly what I'm saying...they are just reporting tests. They are not maintained as tests by patient...

 

[Mjoelner]

Are you saying that one person could count as multiple positive results?

I was wondering that too. The first guy at my place of work who got it said he only had fever for 2 days but tested positive 4 times after all of his symptoms were gone.

 

[DoomSlayer]

[TWEET]1285347155759247360[/TWEET]

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Dobbs is a life long Bureaucrat, like Fauci....

 

[ronpolk]

Dobbs is a life long Bureaucrat, like Fauci....

I don’t buy the conspiracy that the government is intentionally inflating the positive cases. But I could certainly see someone, especially in the government, being dumb enough to not differentiate between repeat positive cases and a new positive case.

 

[msstate7]

I don’t buy the conspiracy that the government is intentionally inflating the positive cases. But I could certainly see someone, especially in the government, being dumb enough to not differentiate between repeat positive cases and a new positive case.

Florida having trouble keeping up with who they testing...

https://www.wlbt.com/2020/07/20/concerns-arise-some-receive-positive-covid-results-never-got-tested/

No way we could possibly mess up here though** Even if we are counting repeats though, I doubt it makes a lot of difference in the overall numbers.

 

[aTotal360]

The worst part isn't the calculation of the data. It's the fact that there are bureaucrats on both sides of the fence that will GLADLY manipulate numbers to bolster their political agendas. They'd rather lie and see people suffer than "be wrong". The fact that simple data is now politicized is disturbing.

 

[Drebin]

So the media is blowing it out of proportion? No way.

 

[ronpolk]

The worst part isn't the calculation of the data. It's the fact that there are bureaucrats on both sides of the fence that will GLADLY manipulate numbers to bolster their political agendas. They'd rather lie and see people suffer than "be wrong". The fact that simple data is now politicized is disturbing.

Agreed. The number of cases is the number of cases. I’m not sure why that should be political.

That’s where we are at with the media though. There is absolutely nothing you can read and just believe you really read the truth without it being framed left or right. Some of the actual political issues I can understand being like that because people’s opinion will influence what they write. But I don’t understand how the number of cases of a virus has turned political. There is no room for opinion there.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

The pandemic is bad enough by itself, you make it an election year and it’s even worse.

 

[fishwater99]

And Ramsey.

 

[aTotal360]

Yup. Voters are being played like a fiddle and don't even know it.

 

[57stratdawg]

I don’t see it as political. There is plenty of access to raw data. If you’re being manipulated somehow, that seems like a problem on the individual.

 

[aTotal360]

That's the problem. There are bureaucrats in charge of counting/recording that are voluntarily cooking the books. "# of cases" doesn't mean a damn thing if you the counting isn't accurate.

Just wait until till the election. I guarantee you at some point, some politician is going to try to say that a certain demographics votes should count more than anothers'. They'll devise some sort of formula to "normalize" the data. Data and data manipulation is the newest political tool. And honestly, sometimes its not even data manipulation as much as it's data presentation.

The game that is played is simple...If you present X data, then you automatically are assumed to have Y agenda. Even simply discussing it means you have an agenda. It's similar to the childish game we've played for 20 years on sports message boards. Find an OM football fan talking about MSU's inability to throw the ball and simply reply "rent free" or "obsessed". He presents factual information, we dismiss it because it hurts our feelings. Now the entire media world is playing that game.

 

[SheltonChoked]

My wife serves on the disaster response team for a county that surrounds Houston... today all of surrounds counties teams met with the Harris county officials to coordinate the resources...there were some interesting notes that she took.

They are getting a handle on how to treat patients and are becoming much more efficient. Fewer of the Covid admissions are needing ICU care than in the past three months.

The Texas Medical Center is running at the same levels it usually does ... they had 71 Level 1 ICU beds empty as of Friday and another 817 available with a few modifications... the issue isn't beds, its staffing. The surrounding counties have over 400 level 1 ICU beds available.

.

That's not what the TMC is saying.... They show the "normal ICU" beds as full, and 8% into the Surge beds.

https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/overview-of-tmc-icu-bed-capacity-and-occupancy/

 

[TwoDawgs]

I live in Lynchburg, Virginia and two of my sons had surgery a couple weeks ago in Norfolk, VA (about 3 1/2 hours away). In order to have surgery they both had to have a COVID test. If they tested positive they could not have surgery. The day AFTER surgery we get a call from the Lynchburg Health Department saying they BOTH tested positive. My wife explained that was not possible because we are in the hospital with them and they already had surgery and were recovering. Long story short, after a few phone calls back and forth and no answer we go to the nurse at the hospital in Norfolk and tell her what has happened. She takes us to her computer and shows us NEGATIVE for COVID for both my sons. I try to avoid conspiracy, but something is wrong. You can't tell me if it was AIDS, flu, strep throat test etc that would have happened. We eventually got a call from one of the higher ups in the health department, and she was apologetic but never said results would be changed. The numbers are all out of whack.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

Simple Mistakes Happen: That's Occam's Razor at work.

 

[Willow Grove Dawg]

^^This^^ Never underestimate the levels of inefficiency & incompetence throughout the bureaucratic layers of federal or various state governments


I don’t buy the conspiracy that the government is intentionally inflating the positive cases. But I could certainly see someone, especially in the government, being dumb enough to not differentiate between repeat positive cases and a new positive case.

 

[PartTimeGenius]

I read Harris County and immediately thought about "The First 48." Maybe I've been watching too much.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

And it doesn't necessarily have to be someone in MSDH. It could be bad information from different hospitals too.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

My wife is a nurse in a memory care center here in Austin and said they have staffing problems as well. Her place is quarantined in sections with plastic zip up dividers. She has worked a lot of her days off

I read your post and she agreed that the staff is running on fumes and the testing numbers have been inaccurate.

 

[ronpolk]

I don’t see it as political. There is plenty of access to raw data. If you’re being manipulated somehow, that seems like a problem on the individual.

So, you don’t see it as political when CNN or Yahoo runs an article talking about how bad Florida, Texas and Arizona are but accidentally forgets to mention California?

I probably lean more left than right but I can clearly see a problem with the way cases are being reported. If you scroll through twitter you would think that Florida was way worse than NYC ever was. But reality is, Florida has way less cases per 100k people and death rate is astronomically different.

 

[TNT.sixpack]

If you (most of us) simply close your eyes and ears. Turn off the TV/radio. Whole thing, isn't even a thing. I'm not saying COVID isn't real. I'm saying that for most us, other than wearing a mask or working remotely, this really hasn't been the BIG THING that we're being told it is. The impact on most of us has been minimal or nonexistent. I have 2 friends who have been impacted by this - one in Kentucky lost a brother to COVID and one locally in Mississippi I know, lost a parent. Again, depending on your circumstances, you've maybe be impacted by COVID. But the MAJORITY of people I know, haven't been impacted by COVID at all. The damn media has just unbelievably flamed this thing like nothing I've ever seen. And I think this is just the start. This will be the norm for ANYTHING from now on. And it is 100% driven by politics.

 

[missouridawg]

So, you don’t see it as political when CNN or Yahoo runs an article talking about how bad Florida, Texas and Arizona are but accidentally forgets to mention California?

I probably lean more left than right but I can clearly see a problem with the way cases are being reported. If you scroll through twitter you would think that Florida was way worse than NYC ever was. But reality is, Florida has way less cases per 100k people and death rate is astronomically different.

I didn't vote for Trump in 2016, but the media is going to force my hand in 2020. I can't stand the man, but I view our media as the biggest problem the country faces and he's one of the few politicians who's gone after both sides of the media.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

I would argue that they're not and that they're accepting the information on face value and acting accordingly. The question is how accurate is that information?

 

[TNT.sixpack]

Yep. You can't ignore this. And NY is being hailed as doing everything right now because they're in good shape. Never mind that they went through HELL initially. Well maybe they're ok now because they went through hell before and they had to do that to finally get on the other side of this thing. Maybe Florida and Texas are just now walking through their hell. Who knows. I just know I'm tired of Florida, Texas and Arizona being singled out for mishandling this thing compared to NY when their numbers haven't come close to what NY did.

 

[Drebin]

I would argue that they're not and that they're accepting the information on face value and acting accordingly. The question is how accurate is that information?

Meh, if it bleeds it leads. The news that came out this week on progress with a vaccine should be the lead story of every news station in the country right now, but it's hardly reported anywhere outside of FoxNews.

Once upon a time, the job of a journalist was to challenge everything and confirm, not just take everything at face value.

 

[Drebin]

Yep. You can't ignore this. And NY is being hailed as doing everything right now because they're in good shape. Never mind that they went through HELL initially. Well maybe they're ok now because they went through hell before and they had to do that to finally get on the other side of this thing. Maybe Florida and Texas are just now walking through their hell. Who knows. I just know I'm tired of Florida, Texas and Arizona being singled out for mishandling this thing compared to NY when their numbers haven't come close to what NY did.

The criticism of Florida's handling of this thing in the media right now is one of the most blatantly dishonest things I've ever seen, especially compared to New York.

 

[FreeDawg]

[TWEET]1285347155759247360[/TWEET]

I do not believe him at all on the 1000 test 1 person = 1 case. The government cannot keep and damn thing straight and he expects me to believe that level of organization? No way man

 

[Go Budaw]

The criticism of Florida's handling of this thing in the media right now is one of the most blatantly dishonest things I've ever seen, especially compared to New York.

Well, Florida (or any city in it) has nothing close to the population density of New York City, where the state’s outbreak was concentrated. The state as a whole has 397 residents per square mile. The most population-dense city in the state (Miami) has about 13,000 people per square mile. NYC has 27,000 people per square mile.

You simply cannot ignore the impact of population density when it comes to the spread of the virus. Even the most perfect regulations and practices are going to have less of an impact when you have a number of people that exceeds the entire population of Starkville living in a single square mile, and that same number per square mile multiplied out about 300 times over for the same area. There’s just too many damn people. Not even to mention, Cuomo and NYC caught quite a bit of flack in their own right, even though it was at the very beginning of the outbreak.

Florida and others are also catching a more intense backlash due to the timing. Florida had beaches wide open, restaurants serving at full capacity, and other very lax practices when we know way more than we did 4 months ago, and when the rest of the country still has more stringent guidelines in place.

 

[engie]

I do not believe him at all on the 1000 test 1 person = 1 case. The government cannot keep and damn thing straight and he expects me to believe that level of organization? No way man

They can't even get the numbers released at a consistent time daily. The release time has changed 3 times and they never manage to actually get it done on time. It's so hard to take something statistical at face value when you can't even get that one little detail correct.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

I definitely agree with your last sentence about not taking everything at face value.

John Lewis's death though is a huge thing culturally and historically what with him being the last surviving Big Six civil rights activist so it rightly dominated weekend news.

 

[Drebin]

Well, Florida (or any city in it) has nothing close to the population density of New York City, where the state’s outbreak was concentrated. The state as a whole has 397 residents per square mile. The most population-dense city in the state (Miami) has about 13,000 people per square mile. NYC has 27,000 people per square mile.

You simply cannot ignore the impact of population density when it comes to the spread of the virus. Even the most perfect regulations and practices are going to have less of an impact when you have a number of people that exceeds the entire population of Starkville living in a single square mile, and that same number per square mile multiplied out about 300 times over for the same area. There’s just too many damn people.

What percentage of deaths in NYC were nursing home deaths? Why did that happen? Hint: it had nothing to do with population density. You can keep making excuses for them, though.

 

[Misfit]

I have read about several promising vaccines in virtually every mainstream media outlet this week. If you only pay attention to Fox News, it will lead you to believe that it is the only outlet reporting anything positive about the virus, because that keeps you angry and Fox thrives on keeping people angry. That is how it keeps its viewership numbers up.