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It has been more than a month since Hawaii& #39;s first coronavirus case, and the state Department of Health still cannot seem to get their act together with regard to the release of information. Thread:
When the DOH released today& #39;s COVID-19 case information shortly before noon, they listed the number of Hawaii deaths at 5 — but included a footnote saying that a 6th death had been reported on Maui. It& #39;s not clear why the death was not just recorded in today& #39;s data. See below.
At some point after today& #39;s information was released, the state removed it from their website entirely — the asterisk, the footnote, everything. See below.
When asked about the reason, a spokesperson for the Department of Health declined to give a reason and instead wrote: "Please standby for the press conference at 2:30 p.m. for more information on that."
It& #39;s far from the only case of information discrepancy. Today& #39;s report from the state (see the graphics above) list 18 confirmed cases on Kauai, but the Kauai County-managed COVID-19 page lists 19 cases, with 0 new (meaning it& #39;s been 19 since at least yesterday).
Earlier this week, we got an email from the DOH asking that we correct a story with a & #39;misleading headline& #39; that suggested the state was encouraging testing for people without coronavirus symptoms. Excerpt from that email in my next tweet:
"DOH has been clearly saying (like all other states and CDC) that only symptomatic persons should be tested. We’d appreciate a correction." The problem with this is that the DIRECTOR OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH said the opposite — that& #39;s how we got the information.
During a telebriefing, a state official asked the following question from Hawaii News Now to Dr. Bruce Anderson. Remember that we can only submit questions by text message during these briefings.
Question: "You told us yesterday that the testing protocols may be modified to test more people who have been in close contact with positive cases – even without symptoms present. When will that happen?" Answer follows in my next tweet.
Dr. Anderson: "We’ve begun to do that already. The Health Department has been focused on the contacts that are symptomatic, but ... we& #39;ve begun to look at those who are close contacts, even though they have not expressed symptoms."
