The Blaz is jukin' the COVID stats

 

Progress New York 

 The weekly Coronavirus sequencing data report released Wednesday showed the fifth, consecutive week of a drop in the number of Coronavirus specimen samples used for the sequencing of variants by the de Blasio administration. The sequencing data, for the week of May 10-16, reported that the trend in a highly contagious Coronavirus variant that has been deemed a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organisation has only increased by one tenth of one per cent. from the prior week. The B.1.617.2 variant has been reported to be roughly 50 per cent. more communicable than another variant prominent in the United Kingdom, and in some parts of England this variant is causing the majority of infections. Infections by variants, like B.1.617.2, have possible attributes that are “predicted to affect” vaccine escape, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet, the sequencing data released Wednesday showed almost no change in this particular Coronavirus substrain from the prior week week.

The collapse in the number of sample sizes raises questions about the Coronavirus variant trend data published by NYC Health, the Municipal Agency reporting the data.

For this report, Mayor Bill de Blasio (WFP-New York City) refused to admit that he was tampering with the sample sizes in order to distort the sequencing study findings. As Progress New York has reported, Mayor de Blasio has been solely focused on reopening the economy after the confinement orders issued beginning in March 2020 closed all nonessential business activity in New York City. An interview request made to the Mayor’s Office was never answered for this report.

 As reported by Progress New York, the sample size for the weekly Coronavirus sequencing reports has been falling since a peak of 1,831 samples were sequenced for the week of April 5-11. This week’s report showed that a mere 361 samples were sequenced, a fall to 19,7 per cent. of its April high.

Because the de Blasio administration has refused to explain the drop, it is not known how a sample size that is less than 20 per cent. of what it was five weeks ago remains random enough to be able to ethically make generalisations about trends in Coronavirus variants that are infecting the general population, particularly since confidence levels and the margins of error of studies influence sample sizes in statistical analyses.

The drop in the sample size is taking place as the number of individuals, who are getting tested for the Coronavirus, is also dropping. According to NYC Health Coronavirus testing data, the seven-day moving average of combined antigen and molecular testing for 23 May stood at 68,6 per cent. of the number of tests taken when compared with the similar metric for 11 April.

At Wednesday’s press conference, Dr. Dave A. Chokshi, the commissioner for NYC Health, and Dr. Jay Varma, the mayor’s senior advisor on public health, acknowledged the drop in the number of Coronavirus tests being administered and explained the drop in testing as working in an inverse relationship to the number of increased Coronavirus vaccinations being given.

Placing so much emphasis on testing of the unvaccinated ignores asymptomatic vaccine escape infections, as well as the known concern with waning vaccine immunity that may require boosters, the latter an issue yet to be addressed by U.S. Government health ministers. Since Coronavirus testing appears to now be focused on the unvaccinated, that also can skew the randomness of weekly sequencing report data.