The City of San Angelo Should Come Clean on COVID-19 Test Results

 

OPINION — The City of San Angelo Health Department needs to come clean on its reporting on the 500 tests administered at a “major employer.”

We are in the middle of not only the biggest health crisis for a century, but also the biggest economic crisis since Sherman burned down Atlanta and marched to the sea during the Civil War. Somehow, announcing the “number of new cases” daily has everyone on an eery death watch.

Of course no one wants to contract COVID-19. We’ve heard it makes it hard to breath for some and it might be a horrible death sentence. However, for the vast majority of those who get the disease — and most of us will or have gotten it — it is mild inconvenience. Some don’t even know they have COVID-19.

For if we were all feeling the physical effects of the coronavirus, we’d be driving through the testing centers en masse, or sitting in the waiting rooms of local health clinics with masks on hoping to get our z-pack prescriptions. But the drive-through testing areas are mostly empty. The number of tests administered were rising about 20 per day up and until a “major employer” tested 500 employees. The health department reports testing from all tests conducted in San Angelo, not just at Shannon Medical Center.

A point of emphasis is that none, zilch, zero patients are being treated in any hospital for COVID-19 here.

When one employer suspected its employees were exposed and they ordered a census test of all 500 employees, it did cause the number of COVID-19 positive results to climb substantially.

Let’s put this into perspective.

That number, 500, is 39 percent of ALL testing accomplished to date, and the results are coming back in just a couple day’s timeframe. Prior to the extra 500 test results, only about 3.4 percent of all tests were coming back positive (44 out of 1,298). As of Saturday, with 570 tests still pending, our positive count increased from 44 to 77, increasing the rate of positive test results from 3.4 percent to 3.8 percent of tests administered. There are still 570 tests results pending, so please hold onto your hats… or masks.

The City of San Angelo was quite transparent about test results up until the “major employer” popped up. What about other cities?

In the onset of the Abilene response to COVID-19, the Abilene City Council briefly flirted with the idea of withholding all information from the public by delaying or denying public information requests. The council quickly voted that idea from its city staff down, especially after the Abilene media complained. Since then, the City of Abilene has been more forthcoming about the COVID-19 testing results. In Abilene, there was a census COVID-19 test administered to all employees of the AbiMar cookie factory. We watched their returns of positive cases jump to 348. The City of Abilene was smart to reveal from where the large increase in positive tests originated, rather than slyly stating it was from a “large employer.”

Getting a positive test result should not be called a “case.” It’s only a positive result. We are creating panic in the citizenry by labeling these positive results as “cases.” No one wants to be a “case,” whether a basket case or a COVID-19 case. Receiving the news of being positive for COVID-19 shouldn’t land you in the leper colony!

Anyway, back to that mystery employer.

By not naming the “major employer” with 500 pending test results, the City is indirectly indicting every major employer with enough employees on staff to test 500 of them. Some of those large employers are retail, customer-facing businesses. This is bad for business. I wonder if the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce should say something about this?

And if the “major employer” doesn’t want itself named, it should learn from what the Kountry Time Academy accomplished after a positive case was identified there. The owners of the day care embraced the positive result, sanitized and cleaned the facility, waited 14 days, and re-opened responsibly. No one can fault them for not taking extra precautions. Likewise, no one will fault the “major employer” for taking the precautions of testing every employee.

The public has a right to know from where the most drastic increase in positive COVID-19 test results since the pandemic began are originating.

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..and how does anything happen to 500 people in San Angelo, without any of that group or their acquaintances mentioning something?

Any possible transparency will ultimately come from the people who value it, not city officials.

They should come clean. I think the business that tested 500 of its employees should get a big hand for doing that. I did not know we had that big of a business here in San Angelo that also sent employees outside the state.

Disregard any right to privacy? Will it change anything? Will it make the citizens any safer? Probably the only ripple effect of knowing the employer is that it would make a lot more people panic.

Ethicon...... All employee's are trapped underground with each other with only the hope that the ventilation system keeps them from breathing everybody elses exhaled air.....

So, measuring anything produces data. The data provides a means to understand what is—the thing—being measured. Unless you’re measuring subatomic particles, the *measurement* does not change the subject being investigated. The *data* certainly does not change the subject being investigated. You’re making the point that data can be skewed and then citing data as proof. Are you for or against data? Is the point you want 100% transparency? Get real. People have a right to privacy. Are you trying to say the data does not actually describe the situation? Either someone provided false data, or the data does actually describe the situation. Otherwise, why would we ever bother measuring anything...ever. Are you worried that people’s perceptions of the situation will be altered because of the new data? Either the data is valid and describes the situation, or the data is invalid. The testing did happen. It did find new cases. That is the reality. If people’s perceptions are going to be their reality, why are you making a fuss? If you want transparency but do not appreciate the data, you have a knot in your brain.

Keeping citizens uninformed, establishing unconstitutional dictum by fiat, closing certain businesses but allowing other to remain open, outlawing religious services. These are all traits of fascist leadership, not those of a country of, by and for the people. There is absolutely no reason San Angelo and Tom Green county shouldn't be fully open for business. The only reason is local authorities have become drunk with power and lost sight of what it means to live in a free society.

Since we are all discussing the apparent non-transparency of COVID testing, what I am wondering is why Shannon refuses to test people who actually have many symptoms of the virus. My personal conspiracy theory is that the city would like to keep their illusion of low numbers so that businesses can open up and people can go back to work. The health of the people be damned!

They need to provide more information about the current and previous cases. Information like when were they actually tested? Where have they been? I mean, have these people been to Wal-Mart, HEB, Lowes, Home Depot?? If so, when? I also have a question about the testing. Are these the test that just identify you currently have the virus, or will this test identify if you have had it already? Where can Tom Green residents go to be tested to see if they may have had it already, and have the antibodies from it? If anyone knows any of the information I am questioning, please feel free to comment or let me know the information. Thanks in advance.

live, Sun, 05/03/2020 - 23:52
Jamie Burch who runs KTXS as its news director and I are good friends. We collaborate all the time. He might have picked up the news 30 minutes faster than us because we run slow on Sunday. Sometimes it’s the other way around.
live, Sun, 05/03/2020 - 23:54

Read about it here: https://sanangelolive.com/news/business/2019-09-18/new-solar-farm-promises-400-temporary-construction-jobs-increased-property

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