OCPA column: Rounding errors should not prompt state shutdowns

Rounding errors should not prompt state shutdowns By Jonathan Small Too often, policymakers’ response to COVID-19 has involved acting as though the virus is both more deadly and more prevalent than it is, and then calling for mandatory curtailment of citizen activity even in areas where COVID-19 is almost non-existent. You may recall the state superintendent of public instruction, joined by teachers’ unions, recently wanted school closures to be mandated whenever a county’s “threat” level reached the orange category on the color-coded map released each week by the Oklahoma State Department of Health. That map colors counties either green, yellow, orange or red, based on severity of COVID-19 rates, and counties in the third highest (orange, or “moderate risk”) level have COVID-19 infection rates greater than 14.39 people per 100,000 population. Schools in counties at the orange level would have either been strongly encouraged or mandated to close if their country reached the orange level. Yet a rate of 14.39 daily new cases per 100,000 population translates into a daily increase of less than two-tenths of 1 percent of a county’s population. Thus, in counties with small populations, a literal handful of cases can put the entire county over the threshold into the “moderate risk” category. For example, Rogers Mills County was recently in the orange category with only two active COVID-19 cases in its 1,141 square miles. Six other counties were in the orange category with just five to 21 active cases each. Read more » by Jamison Faught - August 16, 2020 at 02:18PM

OCPA column: Rounding errors should not prompt state shutdowns Click the title to read the entire article at Muskogee Politico