Lansing, MI (Great Lakes News) – As Gov. Gretchen Whitmer repeatedly appeals to the “science and data” of the Coronavirus as justification for stricter measures, it is critical to review the numbers that the gubernatorial staff reports.
July 15 marked one of many days in which numerous news outlets, and even the government, reported much higher numbers than their sources indicate. That includes the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
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A few of the news sources including: ,,Clickondetroit, ,,Mlive, ,,Detroit News, and the ,,Detroit Free Press among others, reported 891 new confirmed cases in Michigan based off the Michigan Department of Health and Human services website.
Gov. Whitmer also cited the 891 cases figure in her press conference Wednesday, urging Michiganders to “Mask Up.”
The ,,MDHHS website directs users to for its up to date coronavirus information. On the latter’s website, it purports that there were 891 confirmed cases yesterday on the first page, but deeper in the data, a graph indicates a very different number of confirmed cases.
Until the afternoon of the July 16, the July 15 graph throughout the whole day indicated that there was only 42 new confirmed cases, which is roughly 21 times less than what others reported. More data appeared and the new total confirmed cases for July 15 is 149 cases.
Upon examination, it reveals the confirmed cases per county with the highest case being seven. With the June 16 update, Wayne, Oakland, and Detroit City emerge as having the highest cases: 28, 24, and 21 respectively. Of the (18) counties that experienced new cases, only four deaths were reported across all of them.
Before the 42 confirmed cases for the 15 were updated to 149, an agent for the COVID-19 hotline at the state website acknowledged that ,,Michigan.gov is the official website for the Coronavirus for the state of Michigan. Moreover, she recognized that the 42 case count was the best number that one could find, and “the numbers are updated constantly”; however, she said that the number on the site was not the “official number.”
This begs the question, where are the official numbers? If the official website for the public is displaying vastly different numbers for new confirmed cases, can the site be credible?
The biggest question right now is why the gubernatorial staff cited 891 cases at the 3 p.m. press conference on July 15 when the data they allegedly referenced only showed 42 confirmed cases.
Great Lakes New is also questioning if there are other sources the state is turning to for data, and directing the public elsewhere, or if someone is grossly over reporting the amount of new cases.
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