In the latest bungling of tracking data for the novel coronavirus, a recently posted bar chart on the Georgia Department of Public Health’s website appeared to show good news: new confirmed cases in the counties with the most infections had dropped every single day for the past two weeks.
In fact, there was no clear downward trend. The data is still preliminary, and cases have held steady or dropped slightly in the past two weeks. Experts agree that cases in those five counties were flat when Georgia began to reopen late last month.
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DPH changed the graph Monday after more than a day of online mockery, public concern and a letter from a state representative. Gov. Brian Kemp’s office issued an apology and its spokespeople said they’d never make this kind of mistake again.
“Our mission failed. We apologize. It is fixed,”
tweeted Candice Broce, a spokeswoman for the governor.
This unforced error — at least the third in as many weeks — is confounding observers who have noted sloppiness in case counts,
death counts and other measures that are fundamental to tracking a disease outbreak. Georgians check the data daily to decide whether it’s safe to reopen their businesses or send their children to daycare. Policymakers use it for decisions affecting the health of more than 10 million Georgians.
Candice Broce@candicebroce
https://twitter.com/candicebroce/status/1259945971213111297
Replying to @petecorson @AJCInteractives
The x axis was set up that way to show descending values to more easily demonstrate peak values and counties on those dates. Our mission failed. We apologize. It is fixed.
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4:38 PM - May 11, 2020
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In recent weeks, DPH data issues caused confusion over whether novel coronavirus deaths had topped 1,000 — they are now more than 1,490. The agency erroneously posted at least twice that children died.
Some of these errors could be forgiven as mistakes made during a chaotic time. But putting days in the wrong order, as the recently withdrawn chart did, makes no sense.
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“It’s just cuckoo,” said state Rep. Scott Holcomb, D-Atlanta, who sent the letter outlining his concerns to the governor’s office on Monday. The bar chart that stirred the latest controversy was revised shortly afterwards. “I don’t know how anyone can defend this graph as not being misleading. I really don’t.”
A spokeswoman for DPH told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the chart was incorrect because of an error in how it sorted dates. An aide to the governor told Holcomb that a software vendor caused the problem, Holcomb said. A tweet from a Kemp spokesman said the data team behind the chart published it because they thought it would be “helpful.”
Kemp spokeswoman Broce said the office does not dictate what data DPH publishes.
“We are not selecting data and telling them how to portray it, although we do provide information about constituent complaints, check it for accuracy, and push them to provide more information if it is possible to do so,” said Broce.
Dr. Kathleen Toomey, commissioner of Georgia Department of Public Health, speaks as Gov. Brian Kemp looks during a press briefing to update on COVID-19 at the Georgia State Capitol on Tuesday, May 12, 2020. HYOSUB SHIN /
HYOSUB.SHIN@AJC.COM
Photo: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Others worry the data is being portrayed in a way that favors Kemp’s early easing of restrictions. A separate graph on DPH’s page has led readers to think that cases were dropping dramatically, even though lower case numbers were the result of a lag in data collection.
“I have a hard time understanding how this happens without it being deliberate,” said State Rep. Jasmine Clark, D-Lilburn, who received her doctorate in microbiology and molecular genetics at Emory University. “Literally nowhere ever in any type of statistics would that be acceptable.”
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Wrong information about Georgia’s battle against COVID-19 is already shaping the way the public sees the state.
A Friday column in The Wall Street Journal dubbed Kemp’s controversial decision to begin reopening, “The Georgia Model.”
It said the state is experiencing “a welcome trend of declining new cases and deaths.”
In fact, seven-day rolling averages of cases show only a slight decline over two weeks. Deaths appear to have plateaued, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of daily DPH reports. The impact of reopening Georgia’s economy is still too early to measure for both new infections and deaths because of the lag time between an infection, testing, diagnosis and, potentially, death.
Ripple effects
The latest flubbed chart lists case counts from the most recent 14 days, but data collection lags and a quirk in the state’s method of recording cases mean that counts for recent dates are often a fraction of what they turn out to be when the data is more complete.
“You really don’t want to be using very recent data to make decisions, given those delays,” said Benjamin Lopman, an infectious disease epidemiologist and an expert on using statistical analysis and other tools to address public health issues.
“It’s just cuckoo. ... I don’t know how anyone can defend this graph as not being misleading. I really don’t.” —State Rep. Scott Holcomb, D-Atlanta
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