As the death toll from the coronavirus in the United States approaches 100,000, it’s important to keep an eye on efforts to minimize the catastrophe the trump administration has created. There is already evidence that some states may be obfuscating their coronavirus data to better fit President Donald Trump’s personal narrative that the country is making progress toward recovery and reopening, even though most states have not met the guidelines. of reopening published by the administration or the world health organization.
Below are four states you should pay attention to.
You are reading: Cdc caught cooking the books
arizona
in early may, the day before trump was to visit a mask factory in arizona, officials from the state department of health services emailed arizona university models telling them to “stop” their work in coronavirus models. the state’s official explanation is that they had moved toward using a non-public model created by the federal emergency management agency (fema), and were focusing more on “real-time” data than predictive models. The state has since reinstated the modeling team, whose data predicts a possible spike in infection and death rates over the summer. Meanwhile, the state has argued in a court filing against disclosing the names of nursing homes that have seen particularly large coronavirus outbreaks, saying doing so could stigmatize the facilities in question.
florida
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On May 15, Rebekah Jones, the official in charge of Florida’s online coronavirus dashboard, told reporters she had been removed from the project for refusing to help tamper with the dashboard’s books and delete records. online checking. Ella Jones later told reporters that she was fired specifically for refusing to delete data that would have shown her, contrary to pressure from the Florida government. ron desantis (r), certain counties in florida were not ready to reopen. (State officials deny Jones’ allegations, saying the data manipulation claims are “patently false” and that she was fired for “insubordination.”) a complete list of coronavirus deaths that reportedly showed a count 10 percent higher than the official health department count, as well as reports that Florida’s surgeon general was removed from a meeting in April for suggesting that social distancing might need to last as long as a full year. (State health department officials dispute the chairman’s characterization of the medical examiners commission, saying any difference in their numbers is because “they’re counting different things than ours.” Gov. Desantis’s office would not comment on the accusation of the surgeon general.)
georgia
government. brian kemp (right), the only state leader whose response to the coronavirus is as unpopular as trump’s, was forced to admit that georgia was misrepresenting him. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed, charts on the state department of public health (DPH) website showed cases with the dates out of order, conveniently creating the false impression that cases were declining over time just as government. kemp was pushing the state toward reopening. This follows multiple instances where the DPH changed its counting methods in ways that suggested a precipitous drop in cases that conflict with other government and data sources. kemp misrepresenting the number of cases in the state. (Kemp has acknowledged that the state government has “made mistakes” and is working to correct them.)
nebraska
According to the Washington Post, as of May 12, “of the 30 U.S. counties with the highest per capita prevalence of coronavirus… 10 are home to major meatpacking plants.” As these rural meatpacking plants emerged as major vectors of coronavirus, the Nebraska government. Pete Ricketts (r) announced in early May that the state would stop reporting infection rates at individual facilities. By the time the Ricketts administration announced the decision, more than 1,000 workers at meatpacking plants had tested positive for the coronavirus, including several facilities with at least 100 cases each, including one that reportedly saw 669 cases.
conclusion
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Meanwhile, Trump has already begun publicly claiming that death rates are being inflated to hurt him politically, even as members of his own administration, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and nonpartisan data sources like the CDC suggest the death toll from the coronavirus is likely higher than reported.
As Trump recklessly pushes to ease social distancing measures, it will only become more vital to keep the true death toll clear and resist efforts to downplay the devastation the coronavirus has caused.
Jeremy Venook is a Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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