(December 11, 2020, 11:27 a.m.) -- The City of Long Beach -- LA County's second largest city with its own independently run Health Dept. -- is concealing and numerically downplaying the City's daily "positivity rate" (percentage of COVCID-19 tests that test positive.)
The City provides only a "7 day average" of daily positivity rate results, a figure diluted by older (superceded and thus stale) data from nearly a week earlier), effectively hiding the City's daily higher figure. The higher the positivity rate, the more likely the virus is circulating in higher numbers in Long Beach. By concealing that daily more current figure, the City is offering the public a stale figure that is likely lower and less precise in real time.
Yesterday (Dec 10), LB's "7-Day" positivity rate increased to double digits -- over 10% when it was below 3% in early October. In that data environment, the "7 day" roughly 10% figure almost certainly understates LB's actual daily positivity rate.,
The City doesn't deny having the daily positivity rate figure. On December 3 and 4, LBREPORT.com asked Long Beach city management's Joint Information Center to provide us with the most recent daily positivity rate figure. On December 10, the City's Joint Information Center provided us with the following response from the City's Communicable Disease Control Program Supervisor.; Emily Holman, MSc. (who answers to Dr. Davis.)
"The city no longer examines the daily positivity rate, as that number is too unstable and can provide false conclusions. The 7-day average is both timely and more stable and thus, more accurate."
LBREPORT.com notes that nothing prevents the City from providing both figures -- the "7 day positivity rate" alongside the daily positivity figure -- so the public can compare them (with or without accompanying City analysis.) Both Dr. Davis and Ms. Holman answer to City Manager Tom Modica, who answers to the City Council.
Blocking public and press access to the City's daily positivity rate is more problematic than controversial decisions on in-restaurant service made by Dr. Davis. The City has defended Dr. Davis' restaurant decisions (prior to their preemption for three weeks by Governor Gavin Newsom) as within her Health Officer medical role..but that's not so when it comes to censoring timely, numerical data.
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LBREPORT.com publisher Bill Pearl states: "We are unaware of any legal authority allowing Dr. Davis or her subordinate to censor, sanitize, downplay or otherwise block public and press access to timely COVID-related numerical data."
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We'll update you when new hearing is scheduled. We’re a group of residents opposed to City Hall building the project just north of beach sand in SE LB because of future sea-level rise (the beach site is expected to flood in 30-50 years), the cost ($82 million, from Tidelands Funds) and the fact that there’s already an existing outdoor pool at this site installed 5 years ago when the old Belmont Pool was demolished in 2015. There are places in Long Beach with a greater need for recreation and sports facilities
