[Goose]

HIPAA, general expectations of privacy in the USA, and our fragmented healthcare system make that more difficult than you might guess.   In the USA it is more than possible for a physician in a hospital to not know a lot about a patient's long term medical history.

Possibly true, but as the Teejers1 points out, if they know the percentages of each age group, and they know what percentage of the patients have comorbidities, they had to get the data from patient reports. So it is clearly possible to break it down in a two dimensional manner. One may question the accuracy and completeness of the data due to the effects you point out, but subject to those questions, the 2D data is clearly available. The fact it isn't made public is indeed curious, given that the one dimensional data is made available.

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Saying that 12K people have gotten COVID-19 by "community spread" without giving better information as to what these people do that let them get COVID, without warning the rest of us what is effectively risky behavior seems close to malfeasance.  If they were eating purple jelly beans much more frequently than the other 1.9M people, would they tell us?  Or, is there absolutely nothing about these 12,000 people that they do or experience more than others?  I'd find that hard to believe (and, if there was nothing distinguishing, downright scary).



One who tends toward conspiracy theories could think that the counties are covering up what constitutes risky behavior.

Scott Morrow from SMC has previously stated that the Counties don't have the resources and expertise to do this kind of "study" and that the State does. He also says the State isn't doing it. It is pretty clear he believes that this isn't his or the county's role. While that may not be a useful answer, it may at least explain why we aren't hearing about such analysis.

[Goose]

HIPAA, general expectations of privacy in the USA, and our fragmented healthcare system make that more difficult than you might guess.   In the USA it is more than possible for a physician in a hospital to not know a lot about a patient's long term medical history.

Possibly true, but as the Teejers1 points out, if they know the percentages of each age group, and they know what percentage of the patients have comorbidities, they had to get the data from patient reports. So it is clearly possible to break it down in a two dimensional manner. One may question the accuracy and completeness of the data due to the effects you point out, but subject to those questions, the 2D data is clearly available. The fact it isn't made public is indeed curious, given that the one dimensional data is made available.

---

Saying that 12K people have gotten COVID-19 by "community spread" without giving better information as to what these people do that let them get COVID, without warning the rest of us what is effectively risky behavior seems close to malfeasance.  If they were eating purple jelly beans much more frequently than the other 1.9M people, would they tell us?  Or, is there absolutely nothing about these 12,000 people that they do or experience more than others?  I'd find that hard to believe (and, if there was nothing distinguishing, downright scary).



One who tends toward conspiracy theories could think that the counties are covering up what constitutes risky behavior.

Scott Morrow from SMC has previously stated that the Counties don't have the resources and expertise to do this kind of "study" and that the State does. He also says the State isn't doing it. It is pretty clear he believes that this isn't his or the county's role. While that may not be a useful answer, it may at least explain why we aren't hearing about such analysis.