"Georgia health officials have decided to withhold information about coronavirus infections at each school, saying the public has no legal right to information about outbreaks that the state is investigating.The Georgia Department of Public Health started requiring weekly reports from the schools last month and initially said it might share the information with the public. The decision not to reveal the number of COVID-19 case counts and related quarantines and “clusters” means the only recourse for parents and teachers trying to gauge the risk is the willingness of their local school system to publicize its own data.Some school districts in Georgia are not revealing what is going on in each of their schools, though. If they do disclose anything, it is often districtwide numbers that make it difficult to discern the risk within each school..."
Certainly revealing personal information would be a breach of medical privacy laws, but I see no reason to withhold aggregate data. Perhaps I'm overlooking something.
It's generous of you to think there's something to overlook, but there's not. If anything, they're making the problem worse by not informing people in high risk areas, thereby increasing the spread.
ReplyDeleteMy son's school district is publishing a weekly list of cases and quarentines with a breakout of whether it's staff or students, by school. The have a weekly video update to provide more details. They are doing an amazing job keeping terrified parents well informed so we can make our own risk assessments. And I don't live in a rich area, I'm talking rural Ohio schools.
It's criminal to collect that information and not share it. It baffles me how the overarching response has been "it doesn't exist if I don't measure it". To quote e.e. cummings "the rain is no respecter of persons, the snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches"
Kentucky has started updating cases daily searchable by state, county, district, and school. [https://public.tableau.com/profile/chfs.dph#!/vizhome/COVID19SchoolSelfReportngData/SchoolSelfReportCovid19DB] I don't know what Georgia's problem is.
ReplyDeleteAlabama is the same way. They claim it's a hippa thing. But simply giving numbers is not a hippa violation.
ReplyDeleteIts the same here in New Zealand, although we are told we have it a bit better than those of you residing in the USA.
ReplyDeleteEvery day the powers that be tell us that, for instance, there are 2 new cases of Covid-19 today, in the community ... but they don't tell us where exactly.
We have about 5 million people, I guess similar to one of your states ? with the most people concentrated in Auckland, some 1.2 million.
The lack of information leaves us all wondering where the new cases are, where had they been to get infected, et cetera ... and because of that lack of information, where I live, 2 hours from Auckland in a coastal town of 5,000 souls, people are starting to have an issue with Aucklanders getting out of town for the weekend.
I myself, normally not one to follow the herd, now do my grocery shopping on a Thursday, ample time for any germs to dissipate from the items on the supermarket shelves touched by Aucklanders fingers the weekend before, and a whole day away from any of them sneaking away early for a weekend away from the big smoke.
Next you ask ?
I guess regional wars, road blocks on the arterial routes, proof of local addresses needed otherwise up against the wall and sprayed with copious amounts of anti-bacterial chemicals.
Hooded white sheets optional.
It all sounds silly, but I have a friend who helps me with work one day a week, he drives down from Auckland, where his wife works in an early childhood care facility ..... Golly, am I at risk ?
Well gee, I guess I would ask how is the Georgia Department of PUBLIC Health funded? What’s that, you say? By state taxpayers? Do taxpayers get to know how their taxes are spent?
ReplyDeleteGeorgia: Days since last national embarrassment? 0.
ReplyDelete