Flawed County Decision Based on Flawed Data

[Elderberry]

Texas Scorecard by Robert Montoya March 25, 2020

As counties across Texas enact “shelter-in-place” orders, at least one county based their decision on questionable data.

Local governments across Texas recently enacted their next step in attempting to stop the spread of the Chinese coronavirus: limiting business activity and requiring people to stay at home except for essential needs. At least one county judge based his decision on a flawed study, bringing into question if “shelter in place”—and the methods by which it’s being enacted—is the appropriate response.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins’ “shelter-in-place” order was made without discussion or consent from the rest of the Dallas County Commissioners Court. An emergency meeting was held Monday, and the first question—from none other than Democrat Commissioner John Wiley Price—was: why?

Jenkins touted data from a model called Covid Act Now, a model that’s spread around the world, even making the rounds in Harris County. According to Covid Act Now, Texas will likely experience a fatality number of 430,000 if we don’t “shelter in place.”

But this model comes with some asterisks—called “known limitations.” Let’s take a look at them.

From their website:

Known Limitations

•   Only a small fraction of the world has been infected. It’s a new disease. Variables will change.

•   R0s for interventions are guesses, in some cases informed by data. There is no historical precedent for what is going on right now to draw from.

•   The default R0 used in this model is an average. The model does not adjust for the population density, culturally-determined interaction frequency, closeness, humidity, temperature, and more in calculating R0.

•   This is not a node-based analysis, and thus assumes everyone spreads the disease at the same rate. In practice, there are some folks who are “super-spreaders,” and others who are almost isolated. Interventions should be targeted primarily at those most likely to spread the disease.

•   Only hospital beds at aggregate are considered. ICU beds and ventilators, which are likely to run low before beds, are not considered.

•   Demographics, populations, and hospital bed counts are outdated. Demographics for the USA as a whole are used, rather than specific to each state.

•   In containment cases, we do not deal with the longer-term impacts of maintaining containment, primarily the concern with avoiding reintroduction of the disease due to incoming travelers. 14-day mandatory border quarantines, such as those currently in place in China, would likely need to continue until a vaccine or therapeutic is developed.

More: https://texasscorecard.com/metroplex/blog-flawed-county-decision-based-on-flawed-data/