'We Make Mistakes': Gov. Kemp On Coronavirus Statistical Errors

ATLANTA, GA — In a briefing peppered with positive pandemic statistics, Gov. Brian Kemp thanked the Georgia Department of Public Health for their work in compiling those statistics — and then asked Georgians to cut them some slack.

Kemp said Thursday afternoon he was “committed to full transparency and honesty” in reporting statistics related to Georgia’s fight against COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. He also defended Dr. Kathleen Toomey and the state health department, saying they were doing the best they could under difficult circumstances.

“They are taking massive amounts of data from countless sources, putting them into accessible format under a global spotlight, all at breakneck speed,” Kemp said. “Please afford them some patience, and please steer clear of personal attacks. We are all in this fight together.”

The governor’s mea culpa followed media accounts of inconsistencies in Georgia’s data reporting. On May 18, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported a mistaken decline of COVID-19 cases because of a computer coding error. A few days later, The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer confirmed that two different types of tests were being administered to possible coronavirus carriers, making the shrinking number of positives reported suspect.

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“You can be confident in the data, but we make mistakes,” Kemp said later in answer to a reporter’s question. “When we do that, we’ll own that, change it and make sure that people are aware of that.”

Toomey even went so far as to thank the media for its reporting “because they may catch things we don’t.”

Both Kemp and Toomey cited the difficulty of accurately tracking cases and deaths in real time, as well as scientists’ evolving understanding of the coronavirus. Toomey used as an example children who were initially diagnosed with the inflammatory syndrome Kawasaki Disease, yet later counted as COVID-19 cases.

Tracking COVID-19 is “an unprecedented ask” for any health system, Toomey said. With the health department untangling raw information from multiple sources, keeping it straight in real time isn’t easy.

“These systems were never designed to look at an hour to hour basis,” she said.

Before the briefing ended, representatives from both the Georgia State Patrol and the Department of Natural Resources pledged extra enforcement over the coming Memorial Day weekend — for social distancing. GSP Commissioner Gary Vowell said both Georgia’s highways and beaches would be “saturated” with state troopers. And DNR Commissioner Mark Williams promised that parks would be monitored — and possibly temporarily closed — if too many people show up at one time.

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