We need to go on with our lives and stop our COVID fear-mongering.
That’s what Earlin Rosa, supervisor for the Town of Seward, told Schoharie County Health Department head Amy Gildemeister Friday in a blistering, mostly-one sided exchange.
In math that Dr. Gildemeister said was just wrong, Mr. Rosa cited Center for Disease Control numbers to argue the flu is more dangerous than COVID.
“Figures don’t lie, but liars figure,” Mr. Rosa said. “I’m tired of the numbers being spun so out of control.
“This is the type of fear-mongering you create every time you stand up there…”
“You might want to sit down,” Mr. Rosa told Dr. Gildemeister after her COVID Task Force update, turning to a letter from Carla Bates, a retired election inspector from the Town of Seward.
Ms. Bates criticized the long lines of voters left outside in rain, snow, and wind on Election Day—but that was a Board of Elections decision, Dr. Gildemeister said 13 minutes into Mr. Rosa’s barrage; the Health Department was available to answer questions, but it was up to the Board of Elections to set up individual sites.
Acknowledging the seriousness of COVID--“I’m not making light of it”--Mr. Rosa used CDC numbers to argue the flu is just as dangerous, talking over Dr. Gildemeister when she asked to correct him.
“May I interrupt you for a second?”
“No, let me finish.”
Keeping Seward’s voters waiting outside put them at risk of pneumonia or the flu, Mr. Rosa said, arguing those diseases are much more likely to be deadly than COVID.
Yes, safety measures like masks and social-distancing are important, Mr. Rosa said, “[but we need to tell people] keep going with your lives. We shouldn’t be shutting down this country. We shouldn’t be shutting down anything. Because quite frankly, the flu will do more damage than this COVID.”
Except that’s not true, Dr. Gildemeister said.
“The reason that I asked if I could interrupt is the way that you’re calculating numbers is totally inaccurate,” she said.
“You calculate the number of people who died per person who get the disease,” to determine the death rate, she said. “That is two [local deaths] per 160 [the number of local positives.”
“Where do you come up with these numbers?” Mr. Rosa asked, talking over her.
“Figures don’t lie, but liars do figure,” he said again. “You can spin this anyway you want.
“I got the finger yesterday because I was walking down the street, no one around me for an entire block, because I didn’t have my mask on. Let’s move on…I just wanted to make sure people got numbers on the other end.”
But that doesn’t make his numbers right, Dr. Gildemeister said and that’s not how death rates are calculated for any disease—not for COVID and not for the flu.
At this point, supervisors’ chair Bill Federice called an end to the exchange with several other supervisors praising the Health Department’s work during COVID and for providing election guidance when they reached out with questions.
Circling back to the question of percentages, Broome Supervisor Steve Weinhofer asked if the increase in the number of cases is directly related to the number of tests or whether the percentage of positive tests is increasing.
It’s the latter, Dr. Gildemeister said.
“It’s not related to the number of tests done,” she said, even as the number of tests is increasing dramatically because of pool testing at SUNY Cobleskill.
And that worries her.
“We do have a lot of tests going in and out right now. I’m actually concerned…as all the students go home and that number goes down, our positivity rate…could put us in jeopardy of entering the yellow zone because we’re not seeing a huge number of cases in the college kids.”