Thread by @Coyoteblog

Well, first, I do apologize for being a twitter pr*ck which is a reason I am trying to give Twitter up.

Second, I AM angry at the misuse of data & science vis a vis COVID, defending science while actually abusing it.

Third, you are wrong. @markbspiegel

I know you are wrong because rather than trust media outlets like ABC, who have terrible credentials for handling data well AND have the incentive to exaggerate bad things, I have gone to many state web sites and checked their actual data methodology, as I did here first

Here is the daily death definition from the MO website:

"New Deaths Reported in the Last 24 Hours. The number of new deaths between yesterday’ count and
today’s. This is based on the date that the death was reported to DHSS and may reflect individuals who
died previously."

I am sorry for name calling but you see my frustration that folks like you, who are likely perfectly fine folks, will start a war to the death over some twitter fact without bothering to do a few simple clicks to reach the source. Here by the way health.mo.gov/living/healthc…

Just common sense should have told you that the state could not be publishing TODAY's deaths in a media report that went out mid day. In AZ, daily death reported numbers can be for deaths even weeks in the past, and that is my sense of what is happening in MO.

I will confess I had a head start on this, because AZ media in our peak constantly made this mistake of reporting increased cumulative death counts as one day's deaths, until they finally were trained to stop and represent the number correctly

Clearly MO is having a tough time with COVID and the families of these folks have my sympathy, but to the extent there is an actual tragedy here it does not need to be exaggerated.

If you want a more interesting story from the data, it might be "hey, we have been underestimating our problem for weeks as there appears to be a tremendous data lag in the state's reporting system and we are only just finding out now about these deaths." That's a real story

In AZ the case number is a mess because of testing flaws and changes and the death number is delayed. I have watched icu hospitalization as these numbers seem to be without lag and seem to be the sweet spot for communicating outbreak severity

OK, I don't want to pile on further, the point is made I think but this is Twitter so I will. The stories are coming out now clarifying the number to be exactly what everyone had would have known it to be if the original reporters had exercised the slightest bit of judgement

Missouri added a record number of new COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday- 83 -which state health officials blamed mostly on a delay in death certificate data....Most of the deaths actually occurred over the past two months, and some occurred as far back as April
stltoday.com/lifestyles/hea…