By Dalia Díaz
The title of this article is a bit confusing, especially when you finish reading the entire article. I did that intentionally because of the subject of this article.
Since the pandemic began, I’ve been following Richard Russell’s Facebook page because he interprets the numbers issued by the City of Lawrence and they don’t make sense from day to day or week to week. He says that they are hiding something and when Mayor Dan Rivera stopped issuing the daily test results as he used to, he had to depend only on the Massachusetts Health Department’s reports.
When managers say they are data-driven and return of investment (ROI) focused, they are usually more intent on professing a belief than delivering results. You can use good judgment and make the right decision based on bad data, which in the end will be a bad decision. There are a variety of causes for these subtle data problems and I refer to them all as lies.
As an example, the COVID-19 data that is being shown by the Commonwealth is clearly wrong. I am just wondering why they would lie about something so important. This was as much “mathiness” as it was math.
During the week of September 25, 2020, new numbers were showing that the City of Lawrence was the second-highest COVID-19 positive city in the Commonwealth with an average of 22.1 positive cases per day. But the numbers in the system clearly show that the City of Lawrence is more at 40 cases per day.
A few Saturdays ago, the system showed over 125 positive cases for Lawrence. Even if you divide that number by two days (Thursday and Friday’s results) it shows about 65 positives cases between those two days. At this rate, the City of Lawrence will be in a herd immunity in a couple of months and hundreds more dead.
I am still astonished by the fact that I don’t see anyone giving out the $300 fines for not wearing a mask. I enter stores and see people without masks. I see people congregating together more often than not, getting service in places where a mask is required, and still, no one cares about them not wearing one.
Plus, although city businesses have a “no mask no service policy” (and signs indicating such on their premises or food trucks), they themselves (businesses) are not following the standard and are instead taking money from customers not caring if the customer has a mask or not.
If Lawrence Police Officers can’t be everywhere for mask violations, then give that task the real enforcement officers of health – the inspectors of inspectional services. It’s not hard Mayor; you push hard for the things that you want to see in the city, then you should also push hard for the things that make people safe. This is one of them. Stop minimizing this issue – people are dying and it’s partially your fault.
After all, I can’t believe the LPD isn’t giving out fines for not wearing a mask when the city just received an award for Community Policing. That means the LPD is in many places interacting with the public – so they should be seeing these maskless individuals.
The reasons people are getting positive are not because of travel, as so stated by city officials. Just because people traveled to the supermarket and somehow had a positive test should not be categorized as travel. I am not saying that the supermarket is the issue. I am just using that as a location to make a point. But maybe one person (of a COVID-19 positive test group) traveled, but others are positive because of that one person.
What about others? Were they in contact with others? Were they in a backyard party, in a restaurant, playing dominoes in the park, in an area that is close proximity to other humans? The domino tables in Campagnone Park are a good example of leniency. They are in clusters around the tables watching the players and no one is wearing a mask. I guess no police officer ever goes by there.
In the worst case (for example, if we do not perform physical distancing or enact other measures to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2), the virus will infect many more people in a matter of a few months. This would overwhelm our hospital and lead to high death rates in Lawrence.
So while “mathiness” conveys a certain authority, and the idea of “scientifically engineered” solutions sounds attractive, we should remember that science isn’t about certitude, but skepticism. There is never a magic formula that can solve all our problems. A leader’s job is to deal with uncertainty, not ignore it.
“3 out of the last 4 days, Essex County has led all other counties in Maskachusetts with cases of coronavirus!
In the last 4 days, Lawrence has had 179 cases of coronavirus, Essex County has had 405 cases of coronavirus, and Maskachusetts has had 1,451 cases of coronavirus.
This means that Lawrence has had 44.3% of Essex County’s cases of coronavirus in the last 4 days and has had 12.3% of Maskachusetts coronavirus cases while having only 10.29% of Essex County’s population and 1.16% of the Commonwealth of Maskachusetts‘s population.”
Rich Russell
September 25
