Posted on 06/29/2020 5:31:55 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
...Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who rightly earned kudos for his handling of the virus from anyone with a lick of fairness or common sense (which excepts 100% of Democrats and 150% of the mainstream news media), in a Friday press conference provided just such a catchall catchphrase one widely recognized by the global public health community.
Disease Burden.
All right. So the expression doesnt exactly roll off the tongue. But it captures precisely why the media and the governors political opponents hyperventilating as one and echoed by their fellows in other hot spots and nationally need to breathe through their PPE into paper bags and gulp down a powerful chill pill.....So what if, instead of transfixing on frightening but ultimately meaningless stats such as quote case counts, someone really smart were to come up with a meaningful daily Disease Burden Index, much like the Misery Index popularized in the 1970s that added inflation to unemployment? Maybe based on factors like symptomatic cases, length and acuity of hospitalizations, health-system capacity, and most important, death rates?
Such a DBI would be well down from April highs, if not still falling. Allowing policymakers to follow DeSantis in making informed as opposed to panicked decisions, and the rest of us to keep calm and carry on together. Or apart together. Whichever.
(Excerpt) Read more at issuesinsights.com ...
Against
HIPPA laws?
I don’t think it is a problem as long as names are not reported or specific, multiple demographic data points are not tied to zip codes of small population areas.
When I write “who,” I mean things like “Female. Age 20. Grocery store clerk. Tested as routine screening at work. Reports she had a headache and was tired on June 20 and 21 and then felt fine.”
It would also be good to have a “Mitigation Burden Index” that would capture the costs of all these shutdowns.
It should include in this case a reimbursement factor to lower the scale. As the government pays more the numbers go up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.