Data Without Doctoring Dr. David Owen
7/21/2020
Morning update: Holding our own in the tricounty area with evidence of worsening elsewhere in the state. Although the death rate continues to decline in the state, we are seeing north of 100 deaths per day on weekdays for more days than not for the past two weeks. Daily positive tests have remained stable since about July 2 but there are so many variables involved from the test itself to the final reporting that it is hard to conclude much of anything from this. Overall bed usage is stable in the tricounty area with ICU beds at a premium in the cities of Dade and Broward county and more plentiful in the western areas of the counties. PBC has no problems. There is evidence of ICU bed stress elsewhere in the state, though. General bed usage is not stressed in all three counties with more beds out west, than east. Dade is estimated to be 18.73% covid involved and PBC now at 18.0% with est. <10 days for PBC to reach 20% involvt. and 7-10 days for Dade. Will be interesting to see what happens when these points are reached. All in all stability. FWIW, I believe the trends, albeit only slightly improving now, if continued, will allow back to classroom schooling on Aug. 31. Getting teachers to sign onto this will be tough but I hope the data will make the School Board's choices easy. ____ www.frankcastingmediagroup.com www.frankmulhall.com