October 30, 2020 - Baseless Claims
Baseless Claims
October 30, 2020
Today’s case count is similar to yesterday’s - 1,347 cases (incl 164 probables) - to go with 8,234 tests. That produces a one-day positivity rate of 16.4%. This is the first of two days when older cases reported last week will roll off the 7-day rolling average. As a result, BamaTracker’s positivity rate for the last 7 days now stands at 19.68%, similar to the rate I calculated (between 18.3% and 19.6%) after excluding all of the older cases.
No updated hospitalization data has been posted by ADPH since Wednesday. No explanation. I cannot remember a time during the entire pandemic when this all-important data was not disclosed for so long. I don’t know what to make of this development, but everyone should be concerned and should make their opinions known to ADPH.
On March 30, when COVID infections were at their peak in NYC, President Trump insinuated that one reason personal protective equipment was so scarce is because front line health care workers were taking masks from hospitals “out the back door”, suggesting they were being sold on the Black Market. The claim was completely baseless - a total fabrication. Of all the President’s attempts to shift blame for inadequate planning, this attack on first responders and health care workers always bothered me the most. Now, as memory of this low moment has begun to fade, the President strikes again.
During a campaign rally in Wisconsin, President Trump questioned current COVID-19 data by describing a purported “incentive” to report cases and deaths, because “doctors get more money and hospitals get more money.” The American College of Emergency Physicians issued this statement, "These baseless claims do a disservice to all health professionals and promulgate misinformation that hinders our nation's efforts to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control."
The truth is, doctors do not receive a penny more for treating COVID patients, but the CARES Act, a coronavirus relief bill signed into law by President Trump, does provide for a minimal enhancement to hospitals to partially reimburse them for the cost of additional personal protective equipment (PPE) and related costs that the federal government promised but failed to deliver. According to the dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, “the funds were a way to help make hospitals whole. But it hasn’t. Most hospitals are bleeding money as a result of COVID.”
At a time when truth often seems ephemeral, there is one thing for certain. Emergency physicians and other healthcare workers are heroes who have risked their lives day in and day out for almost a year battling the greatest public health crisis in a generation … and we should all be eternally grateful. The totals:
10/17 -1288
10/18 - 964
10/19 - 859
10/20 -1043
10/21 -1146
10/22 -1390
10/23 -1287
10/24 -1178 - 1769
10/25 -1079
10/26 - 967
10/27- 1115
10/28 -1269
10/29 -1443
10/30 -1347
Almost ⅔ of Alabama’s 67 counties - 42 in all - now have positivity rates above 20%, while Madison Co. (9.45%) is the only county with a rate below 10%. Three counties reported more than 100 new cases today - Jefferson (148), Morgan (120) and Baldwin (also 120).