Data Without Doctoring Dr. David Owen 08/03/2020
Morning update: An excellent report tempered by expected under reporting due to weekend and Isaias. Positive tests and deaths were predictably down and bed usage was stable to sl. decreased. We will need catch up data from this mid week before hypothesizing the worst is behind us. Over half of reported deaths came from the tri-county area. Thus the rest of the state appears to be in good shape. I'm arguing no epicenter in Florida, however if one must denote one, Dade and Broward would qualify but again, hospitalizations in the area are tight for ICU and more open for general beds. Given the population, these numbers are not NY/NJ-ish by any stretch. PBC definitely not an epicenter!!
I hear anecdotally about full ICU beds in different hospitals and that most are covid. First, how does one know this without snooping around medical charts, which may not be that accurate in denoting diagnoses anyway(perhaps over diagnosing). It may be difficult to differentiate non covid cardio-pulmonary conditions from the virus itself. The data which I use is reported daily by the hospital to the state. Second, ICUs do tend to run full and fuller. With so many general beds available in PBC, with younger, healthier people being affected and presumably admitted, I just don't see how this translates into more covid ICU beds. There may be significant misdiagnosis here, but this is impossible to prove, I admit.
All, in all an excellent report in terms of trends but with M&M not trailing off as quickly as I would like to see. I'm just getting a feeling that we may be dealing with over-diagnosis. We'll see during the catch up data this week. Continued sl. bed improvement to be delineated in report tonight. ___ www.frankcastingmediagroup.com www.frankmulhall.com