During the 5-o’clock follies, we got our regular dose of butt-kissing (of Trump, of course) and ‘ain’t things swell!’ from Mike Pence.
To show us how much better things are now, he flashed 3 maps very quickly up on the monitors with the explanation that, in spite of the clear label on each map that it shows influenza-like illness activity, that they show mostly coronavirus activity (This is at the 19:00 point of the video).
Here are the other 2 maps. Each is marked with the date it represents: (I took screen-shots for preciseness)
There are a number of problems immediately apparent in these maps as far as their representation of the status of Covid-19’s spread in the USA — such as:
California going from orange to yellow to green
Texas going from red to yellow to green
Louisiana or New York showing as anything but blue (the worst)
Wisconsin worse than its neighbor Illinois...
Michigan is green, green and green… while they store excess bodies in the sleep lab of a hospital
I could go on for quite a while, and I’m sure you can find misrepresentations as well. Obviously it doesn’t accurately show the status or progression of the disease in this country. In a nutshell, while the disease is progressing more slowly in some parts of the country, there isn’t anywhere in the USA — to my knowledge — where status is going from red to yellow to green across the most recent 2 to 3 week period.
I looked at the CDC explanation for how the data backing these maps, and the rest of the information on their site, are gathered. I found absolutely no mention of Covid-19 anywhere, and all of the testing included was specifically for influenza. There was absolutely NO Covid-19 data included, and CDC is excellent at including it’s source data for anything they present.
Another problem is the data gathered was from outpatient visits to healthcare providers. In most places, sick people who think they have Covid-19 are not going to their doctor’s office — they are going to the hospital, and they aren’t getting an influenza test, they’re getting a Covid-19 test…. and they only get that if their symptoms are major enough to qualify for one of the limited number of tests available.
Here is the header of the page with the maps that Pence showed:
That pretty clearly specifies ‘outpatient’ data only is being used for these maps.
So I dug a little deeper, and found the state data submitted to the ILINet (it’s in a handy csv file), and checked the data from New York state. With well over 5,000 cases of Covid-19 reported per day for the past few weeks, if Covid-19 is being included in these maps, it will show up for New York, for sure. Here’s where the trail led:
Again, it’s all about influenza, influenza, influenza, without any mention of Covid-19. If you click on the link above, you’ll get the full report this snippet came from, and even the full report contains no mention of Covid-19.
I didn’t bother checking any more states — since New York isn’t reporting Covid-19 cases through ILINet, nobody else is, for sure. If they were, it would skew the maps quite badly, and the data wonks at CDC wouldn’t do that.
So there you have it: Mike Pence flashed 3 maps of FLU data — showing the end of the seasonal flu season — to attempt to show us how good the Covid-19 trend. I can find no evidence that any Covid-19 data was represented in that map, and lots of evidence — I’d say overwhelming — that there is none. If someone can show me I’m wrong, please do so.
The only question left: Did Pence know he was presenting misleading, even downright dishonest, information to America?
Cheers.