Admitting inaccurate coronavirus numbers isn’t enough. Stanislaus must correct problem

Stanislaus County officials must provide accurate local information on the coronavirus pandemic, an ongoing and worsening crisis affecting every life.

The county admits that the website numbers they update daily have not reflected reality in recent days. They admit that their local processes have contributed to a shocking backlog, leading to an underreporting of local COVID-19 numbers. Officials have even apologized in public.

Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Kristin Olsen said Tuesday that the discrepancy between Stanislaus numbers and the state’s is confusing people and eroding trust. She’s right.

But they haven’t fixed the problem, which appears to be unique in our area.

Anyone with digital access would see from Stanislaus’ coronavirus dashboard that as of Wednesday we’d had 2,889 positive cases since the virus hit. But the California Department of Public Health’s site showed 3,983 Stanislaus cases that day, a stunning discrepancy of 1,094 cases.

In one of her public apologies this week, Dr. Julie Vaishampayan, Stanislaus’ public health officer, claimed that “many, many counties have gotten behind,” suggesting that this is a common if not widespread problem.

Trying to verify this claim, The Bee looked at COVID numbers reported on websites of our neighboring counties — San Joaquin, Merced and Tuolumne — and found no other underreporting its numbers. We then broadened the search to the entire San Joaquin Valley, and threw in Sacramento and Mariposa counties for good measure, and still found only small discrepancies.

Stanislaus stands out — unfortunately

Stanislaus’ largely unreliable reporting of these all-important numbers clearly stands out.

People don’t care much about the reasons why, mostly revolving around a staffing shortage that other counties seem to have figured out while we have not. If the state had not kicked over to us another 20 contact tracers — an indication of how worried the state is about our growing numbers — Stanislaus’ woeful underreporting would be even worse.

Some of the blame can be attributed to an irrational desire to weed out possible duplicates, an exercise that apparently has sucked up untold hours of staff time with very little payback.

The recent Stanislaus surge is more than upsetting. Our infections now surpass San Francisco’s. COVID hospitalizations stood at 26 four weeks ago, when our economy first began reopening; now there are 166. A nurse at a Modesto hospital, telling of understaffing and the stress of treating COVID patients, texted “Please help us” to a Bee reporter this week.

What should be done?

Stanislaus officials’ plea for patience is understandable and warranted. Of course they need time to dig out of such a deep hole. Vaishampayan says her staff has streamlined screening questions in infection investigations, which might help. But no one knows when her people might catch up and begin reporting something closer to truth.

Simple solution to keep public trust

A simple interim answer makes almost too much sense: Until the backlog is erased, just report state numbers.

Apologizing for wildly inaccurate undercounts is nice but serves little real purpose. When people know the government is not telling the truth, they become jaded and wonder what they can believe about anything.

Important debates about reopening and reclosing stores, restaurants, nail salons and all other businesses, and whether our schools can accommodate students and staff in a few short weeks, all depend on accurate data.

Stanislaus officials admit that state COVID numbers are more accurate than their own. Those numbers should be shared locally until Stanislaus health officials can get their house in order.

This story was originally published July 9, 2020 at 3:03 PM.