Happy Wednesday! My PHL Public Health press briefing recap, below:
As of Wednesday, April 22, there have been 10,643 cases of COVID-19 and 423 related deaths in Philadelphia since the start of the pandemic.
This is an increase of 615 new cases and 29 new deaths since yesterday.
These numbers are consistent with other increases from the few days, but,
“The peak of the epidemic is actually higher than what we previously thought,” Dr. Farley said.
In the city’s jail, there are now 53 people who are incarcerated who are testing positive with the virus.
This is an increase of five new positive cases and a decrease of six new negative cases since yesterday, Dr. Farley said.
Of Philadelphia's total 423 deaths, 220 of the people who died (52%) were nursing home residents.
"Nursing homes continue to bear the brunt of this epidemic," Dr. Farley said.
Hospital numbers continue to increase.
There are 949 COVID-19 patients in Philadelphia hospitals and 1,824 in hospitals in the entire SE Pa. region.
“We have plenty of capacity region-wide, but some hospitals have been much harder by this and others,” Dr. Farley said.
Note on testing:
Testing reveals if a person is positive/negative at that moment, but NOT if they have been exposed to COVID-19 or are in an incubation period, Dr. Farley said.
Due to this, he does not recommend people to get tested if they do not display symptoms, he added.
Further, testing in Philly is still limited by the number of swabs available.
Philly has seen a reduction in air pollution since the start of its Stay at Home order, mostly due to a decrease in vehicle use (which is the largest source of air pollution in the city), Dr. Farley said.
When this is over, we will have to find ways to continue this by keeping vehicle pollution down, Dr. Farley said.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
(1/) Thread on focusing on fair reporting, as opposed to unbiased reporting, based on a helpful tip from NYT's Astead Herndon, @AsteadWesley, in his AMA at #IRE20.
His explanation helped me better understand this concept and hopefully it can help others, too.
(2/) I asked @AsteadWesley his thoughts on responding to criticisms of bias in political reporting, and how to avoid it in the first place.
He responded that, "if you are fair, accurate, clear, and contextualized... you will not be biased."
(3/) The emphasis on routing out bias largely "comes from a journalism community that's for too long seated the question of objectivity to only being one that's in a partisan framework, and that's, frankly, one that I don't think really suits us," he said.
Here’s today’s (Wednesday, Aug 19) COVID-19 numbers in Philadelphia. This is based off of a press release from the Mayor’s Office.
As of today, Wednesday, Aug. 19, there have been 32,569 cases of COVID-19 and 1,735 related deaths in Philly since the start of the pandemic.
This is an increase of 137 new cases and 18 new deaths since yesterday.
Today’s large increase in deaths "is due in part to matching Department of Public Health records with death certificate," according to the press release.