County executive says state data is wrong
County executive says state data is wrong  

 

What's behind a spike of 31 COVID-19 cases for Erie County reported by Pennsylvania on Saturday?  County Executive Kathy Dahlkemper says the data showing the highest single day total is not accurate.

According to Erie County data, 31 is the three day total of cases from Friday through Sunday. That includes 10 cases Friday, 15 cases on Saturday and 6 on Sunday, not a one day jump.  The state data showed 5 cases on Friday, 31 on Saturday and 4 on Sunday.

Dahlkemper said if the state is holding back the county from going green based on data, the data should be right. "It does reduce people's confidence, I know that " Dahlkemper said, "when they see this data changing and this kind of discrepancy happens."

Elected officials have been making a unified plea to Harrisburg to advance Erie County to the green phase of reopening. Governor Tom Wolf says climbing case data is the hold up, but the county executive says constant discrepancies in the state numbers aren't helping.  "The state data keeps changing and so I’m just trying to go by the data that I have at the Erie County Department of Health, which I know to be accurate and true," Dahlkemper said. 

The executive director of Pleasant Ridge Manor Bob Smith says his long term care facility is the victim of an error in data as well. The state COVID-19 website shows them with 8 patient cases of the virus, and an asterisk represents between  1 and 5 employee cases, while the real number is zero.  The facility has had no cases through the pandemic. 

"It looks as if the facility underneath us in the list, Pleasant Valley manner in Monroe county,---it looks as if our data is showing up under their name," Smith said.  He has reached out to the state to ask that the data be corrected, because an error that big will worry the families of residents already there, and prevent others from coming. "It’s very concerning because often times people are told that even in selecting a nursing home they should be using this as a criteria for doing it and if the information isn’t accurate and it doesn’t give a true picture of where the facility is then it really does’t help the facility," Smith said.

Last week state Representative Ryan Bizzarro went so far as to tell county residents to act as if we're in the green phase already.  Kathy Dahlkemper isn't calling for that. "No, I don’t believe we should do that, I mean the governor has an order, we need to follow the governor’s order..." she said.

But she is calling for the state data to be right.  "We don't want to have an adversarial relationship and I don't think the state's going to us that to punish us or not allow us to go green, they're looking at their data, I just need their data to be correct." Dahlkemper said.

With 11 new cases of COVID-19 announced on Monday, there is still an 8 or 9 case count discrepancy in the state and county totals.  Kathy Dahlkemper said even with flaws in the data, the county's analysis is that the latest COVID-19 cases are widespread across the community and not linked to one activity or group of people.

The county executive said the best way to help the county go green is to wear your mask, keep your distance from others, and wash your hands.  If there is another shot at getting the non to go green, Dahlkemper doesn't expect to hear about it until later in the week.