Representative Brian Mast (R-FL) on Wednesday reacted to an investigation in Florida, finding discrepancies in coronavirus positivity rates.
Mast said the labs misreporting positive cases is “messing with the truth” by skewing the numbers, which is not allowing Americans to manage their own risk.
“I think you see a couple of problems, obviously, with that,” Mast said of the inaccurate reporting. “Americans are making decisions. County commissioners are making decisions. Governors are making decisions. Schools, elections commissions, everybody is looking at these numbers, the positivity rates, where are they spiking, not spiking, what is working, what’s not working, and realtime decisions are being made. So, if you have some of these labs not reporting the negatives, only reporting the positives, skewing these numbers … they’re messing with the truth.”
“They are not allowing information that allows Americans to manage their own risk, manage their own health, and make the decisions that they need to make according to the risks that are imposed by the people that live in their family,” he continued. “Do they have seniors in their family or somebody with cystic fibrosis or something else. They are not having that opportunity to make the real truthful decisions that they need to make, and it’s wrong, and it’s ignorant.”
Mast said it is “too early to say” if the inaccurate reporting is “innocent or nefarious,” but he said he would not be surprised if it were nefarious because of how politicized the coronavirus has become.
“What we do know is this has gone on in a number of different locations. I lean on the nefarious side that some of these entities wanted to see these higher numbers go up to make things a little bit more dramatic. You hate to have to say that, but I think in the world that we live in, we can see that this has been politicized in many different cases. Now, when we’re looking at this causes us to ask the question across the country where else has this happened, not just in Florida, not just in the Orlando area, but in other states, and who is getting the wrong information that they can’t trust?” added Mast.
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
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