Brevard School Board Member Draws Inappropriate Conclusions With COVID-19 Data

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BREAVRD COUNTY, Fla. A member of the Brevard County School Board has used hospitalization data from Parrish Medical COVID-19 to distort the real situation that hospitals are currently facing, according to the CEO of the hospital system.

Hospitals in Brevard County have regularly released COVID-19 figures in recent weeks due to the increase in cases and hospitalizations, including the Parrish Health Medical Center, which discloses the number of hospitalized, intubated and intensive care patients .

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In an emergency school board meeting on Monday, the Brevard Public School Board voted 3-2 to impose a 30-day mask policy. Everyone on campuses over 2 years old will be required to wear a face covering, unless participating in physical activity. Students can opt out of policy, but will need a note from a licensed medical professional.

School board members Jennifer Jenkins and Cheryl McDougall and President Misty Belford voted in favor of the term, and Member Katye Cambell and Vice President Matt Susin voted against, News 6 partner Florida Today reports. The emergency meeting was heated with parents speaking out against or for the mask’s mandate.

Parrish Medical CEO George Mikitarian released a statement Wednesday accusing one of the school board members of misusing data provided by the hospital.

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Inappropriate conclusions were drawn based on the separate and district data points in the daily COVID hospitalization report, he said in a press release. Generalizations and trends cannot be gathered from this data.

Mikitarian did not name the school board member who made the incorrect statements, but said he missed two important pieces of information.

The data clearly reflected that lack of vaccination is an important factor for hospitalized, intensive care and intubated patients, he wrote.

Second, Mikitarian said the school board member attempted to use the data to claim that the data does not support masks in schools.

Realizing that under 12s cannot get vaccinated (57% of school-aged children), then the argument sucks, Mikitarian said.

Because more than half of the students cannot yet get the vaccine, Mikitarian said they should wear masks.

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Our data did NOT support not wearing masks, as this person argued, he wrote.

In August, Parrish reported 50 deaths from COVID-19 compared to 3 in July.

Our morgues are full. We had to place a large overflow refrigerated mortuary unit on our campus, Mikitarian wrote.

Parrish had 44 COVID-19 patients on Tuesday, 39 of those patients are unvaccinated, according to the hospital. The hospital system also has 10 intensive care patients and nine intubated patients with COVID.

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