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The @BGSU covid dashboard is a master-class in bullshitting with numbers. Lives are at risk. Mayor @MikeAspacher and the @cityofbg community should demand answers from @Benjamin_batey and @pres_rogers . 1/n
For context, BGSU opened about 2 weeks ago. The faculty, forced to teach in person, have been pushing for a dashboard so they can make informed decisions about risk. This is the bare minimum that a university should provide its community 2/n
Their case data is reported in two ways. Cumulative (useless) and "this period" which is a bizarre 11 days. Why would they report things in such a strange way? My best guess is because last week they reported ~5 cases. That means they& #39;ve had 33 in the past week. 3/n
So they& #39;re obscuring an increase by adding everything together rather than plotting it by day. Most glaringly, they don& #39;t report the number of tests. Is this 33 cases out of 33 tests? 300 tests? 3000? 16,000 students?. A very different story for each of these scenarios. 4/n
My guess is it& #39;s not more than a ~300 tests/week because they only test students coming to campus that report symptoms. That would make the actual overall positivity >10%. I& #39;m happy to be proven wrong here with the missing data. 5/n
They go on to tell us how many students are isolated on campus. Here& #39;s where my blood boils a bit, of those 33 cases only 6 are being isolated on campus, despite ample open rooms (100%). Why are the rest left off campus to infect others? 6/n
The bottom is where things get genuinely bad. Since March they& #39;ve tested 420 asymptomatic people in surveillance testing. Just over **2** tests a day, and 1.4% have been positive. 7/n
It& #39;s mind blowing that a university would choose not to allocate enough funding during a pandemic to run more than 2 surveillance tests a day. They spend millions a year on football.
Even with terrible testing, 1.4% asymptomatic people tested have come back positive. They call this the overall positivity rate, but it& #39;s closer to an attack rate. If 1.4% of 20k students and staff are currently infected that& #39;s ~300 cases on campus and they detected 38. 9/n
Yet this measure too strangely stretches back to march . This makes it look like they& #39;re doing more testing and artificially deflates what they& #39;re calling "overall positivity" because prevalence is likely higher now than any time since march. 10/n
Even with this limited and terrible presentation of data we can conclude that @bgsu is not doing enough testing, probably has several hundred active cases on campus, is refusing to use resources to support the cases they& #39;ve found, and is risking lives and livelihoods 11/n
I want to apply Hanlon& #39;s razor here, and assume that this is just a remarkably incompetent response to the pandemic. It& #39;s a little hard to believe because I& #39;ve heard from faculty that their objections go unanswered. They& #39;re afraid for their jobs and health 12/n.
Some even told me that the admin has said they will not close, regardless of the number of positive cases. If this is true, we& #39;re firmly in malice territory. I fear @BGSU is intentionally tanking its testing and reporting to avoid backlash from remaining open. 13/n
So, @Pres_Rogers and @Benjamin_Batey... prove me wrong. Release the daily data from the past two weeks. How many tests were conducted each day and how many were positive.
Better yet, test 2000 students/faculty/staff balanced on and off campus. How many are positive? 14/n
Better yet, test 2000 students/faculty/staff balanced on and off campus. How many are positive? 14/n
If you can& #39;t do these things, please know you& #39;re risking the lives and health of a lot of people in the Bowling Green Community.
Finally, to @cityofbg and @MikeAspacher, the outbreak is going to get out of hand and fall to the city to clean up. Prepare for it. 15/15
Finally, to @cityofbg and @MikeAspacher, the outbreak is going to get out of hand and fall to the city to clean up. Prepare for it. 15/15
