Collin County Texas Message from Commissioners Court Re: Covid Numbers reported Greetings Friends and Neighbors. Over the last five months, many Collin County citizens have relied on the County's website for up-to-date information regarding COVID-19 and the infection rates that are specific to our communities.  Our goal has been to be transparent, and provide accurate data that our citizens could trust.  Collin County's numbers have been based on data that primarily originated from the state, who initially receives the information on positive COVID-19 tests, directly from the labs.  BACKGROUND ON REPORTING From March until June 1, the process of data reporting was handled primarily in Collin County, which transferred from the state to Collin County's Health Department for follow-up, and then transferred back to the state for their records.  Many of you are aware that on June 1, Collin County transferred the responsibilities for all COVID-19 case investigations, contact tracing and reporting to the state.  I want to emphasize that the reporting issues that I'm about to describe would have been present regardless of whether this work was being done at the local level or the state level, because as I previously explained, the entire process begins at the state, which is where the county received the bulk of our data for follow-up.  WHAT HAPPENED? Last weekend, the County was informed that the state had found a "backlog" of over 1,500 cases, some dating back to March, April and May, that were literally NEVER reported to Collin County for case investigations or contact tracing, as well as thousands of other cases across the state.  These cases have been described as an "electronic integration" issue between some of the labs and the state, and were never parsed out of the electronic transfer.  Naturally, when these numbers were added to the county and state dashboards, this caused a spike in the numbers being reported, which also resulted in tremendous concern and confusion by the public.  We were also told that the state system would be offline for maintenance, and we would likely see zero cases for a day or two, further adding to the inaccuracy of the situation.  To add insult to injury, the court was informed that the state is not focusing on reporting the "recovered" cases, which has resulted in inaccurate reporting for "active" cases and the current infection rate being artificially inflated due to the state's lack of reporting these cases. The state's reasoning was that it was focusing on the active cases, which is understandable, except that if you don't take out the recovered numbers from the number you're reporting as "active" - you're misleading everyone about the number of current people who are truly actively infected.  Looking at the chart on our dashboard, you can clearly see that the "trend line" of recovered cases flattened out around July 1, where a significant drop occurs in reported recoveries.  This was also a huge concern for the Commissioners Court, and therefore, I want to keep you informed of the actions that were taken by the court on Monday. ACTION TAKEN BY THE COMMISSIONERS COURT Quite frankly, the citizens of Texas and the people of Collin County deserve to have accurate information, and the situation we are now in is unacceptable.  I understand that many of you depend on this information to make decisions about your lives, so during our meeting on Monday, the court had a lengthy discussion on how to proceed.  The discussion primarily centered around whether or not we should continue to report the state's (inaccurate) data.  A motion was made to completely remove it from our website, however, I expressed great concern that this would cause a massive amount of confusion and concern by the public.  I know that there are literally thousands of people who visit our website regularly - and if this data were to suddenly be unavailable, it would cause a lot of panic.  The problem is that we know that the data is flawed, so I suggested that we provide a disclaimer on the website, informing the public about the issue, which reads, "Warning: Collin County is providing COVID-19 numbers and data as a convenience to our residents. However, because we have been made aware of inaccuracies in the Department of State Health Services’ reporting, we must advise residents that Collin County has no confidence in the data currently being provided to us."  We will be revisiting this issue in the coming weeks and hopefully find a way to redeem the data, and our confidence in the Texas DSHS reporting.  HISTORY OF THE PROCESS OF REPORTING Here's a little bit of history in the Collin County COVID-19 timeline which will provide some context on the court's decision to transfer responsibilities to the state.  In May, the Commissioners Court was notified by the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) that the state would be "standardizing their criteria and definitions" for COVID-19 reporting, and that they had procured a company to take over the case investigations and contract tracing, which was currently being done at the county level.  On May 18, the Commissioners Court had a lengthy discussion about this process with representatives from DSHS, in which we asked many questions about their new protocols and definitions of what criteria would be used to determine an "active" case.  Unfortunately, representatives from DSHS left us with even more questions, which took several weeks to clarify.  We were then told that IF we wanted to continue with case investigations and/or contact tracing, the state would allow us to do so, but we would still be required to forward them all of the information collected, to be kept as part of the official record.  Later in May, the Commissioners Court voted to transfer these responsibilities to the state beginning on June 1, in a 3-2 vote.  It is important to realize that on May 31, Collin County had 356 active cases, and our county resources were maxed out to provide case management, investigations and contact tracing.  There is literally no way that the County would have had the capacity to maintain reporting according to the new state-mandated protocols at today's (projected) levels, especially with the County employees returning to their regularly assigned posts and no longer being temporarily assigned to our Health Department. My reasons for supporting this transfer were many:  •	The state had already procured the contract to have this work done.  As a conservative, I could not justify paying TWICE for this work to be done, when it was already paid at the state level.  This was estimated to cost between $4M-$6M, just to maintain the number of infections we had at the time (356).  Today's numbers are exponentially higher, even when you consider the hospitalization rate, or the number of case investigators that are now required to follow up with cases.  •	By May, contract tracing had already become a VERY burdensome process, exhausting our local resources and staff, including permanent Healthcare staff, and many who had been temporarily reassigned to help with these efforts. •	Even if the County kept the responsibility for contact tracing at the local level, we are required to turn it over to the state, and follow the state's protocols and case definitions. •	Literally NONE of the privacy concerns expressed by citizens would have been alleviated due to the mandates placed upon the County. •	I greatly favored using our CARES Act money for things that would help our community recover from this crisis, rather than waste it on something that was already paid for by the state. •	A colleague rightly pointed out that we frequently lament about unfunded mandates from the state, and now that the state is willing to pay for something it has mandated, why would we insist on paying for it... again? WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? So for now, we are left with reporting data that we know is inaccurate.  And who's to say that there won't be another "backlog" of files that will be released?  The Commissioners Court was very clear on Monday that it is literally IMPOSSIBLE to make sound policy decisions with inaccurate information.  We were also very clear that we do not want to report data that we know is not accurate, but we've decided to pass along the state's data, with a disclaimer.  We know many will be very frustrated, just as we are, but we must act in good faith, transparency, and inform the public regarding the issues with the information we are providing on our website. Thank you for taking the time to read this update, if you've made it this far.  Please know that the Commissioners Court will continue to push for accurate data, and will keep the public informed to the best of our ability.  Collin County Dashboard: https://experience.arcgis.com/…/c00baf45f12a4899aae1c812e29… Texas DSHS Dashboard: https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html… Have you suffered a financial setback due to the COVID-19 economic shutdown? Collin Cares is a direct financial assistance program for Collin County families. Help is available. https://www.collincountytx.gov/cares/Pages/default.aspx Stay tuned for details regarding our new Collin Cares Business Grant program, as we will soon be accepting applications for CARES Act funding for our business community.  Many of our local cities have used the funding the court provided for business grants, but we've seen a gap in the funding between communities, and also want to help those businesses in the unincorporated areas who have been affected. Thank you for taking an interest in your county government.  My door remains open, so if you have any questions or concerns, please contact me either by replying to this e-mail, or through my county e-mail address: sfletcher@collincountytx.gov..