One thing that El Paso has refused to do, for unknown reasons, is provide the community with weekly trends in positivity results on COVID-19 testing. This leaves the community flying blind on a key indicator of the virus' spread in the community. My rant follows. 1/

El Paso updates a "cumulative" positivity rate every week (or sometimes when it gets around to it) that creates a false sense of reassurance. The numbers on the city website show the positivity rate hovering between 7.5-8.5% in the past 6 weeks. Here's why that's misleading. 2/

Cumulative reports track numbers over the entire course of the pandemic, rather than breaking them down into, say, seven-day chunks. You would never know from the city's data that the positivity rate is up sharply the past 3 weeks. 3/

It's impossible to calculate a precise positivity rate using available data because the city doesn't actually publish a number of tests administered. Instead, it posts a vague "estimate" each day that is much higher than the numbers the state is reporting for El Paso County. 4/

El Paso reported an "estimate" of about 20,000 tests this week; the state's numbers show 8,500 tests in El Paso. The state likely undercounts El Paso tests because more than half a million tests, about one in five done in the state, haven't yet been assigned to a county. 5/

El Paso reported 2,146 new COVID-19 cases this week. The city's testing "estimate" yields a 1-week positivity rate of 11%; the state number yields 25%. The true number likely is in between. In any case, a huge jump in positivity, likely a factor of 2-3 since early June. 6/

It shouldn't take a journalist flailing on a spreadsheet to scratch out a weekly positivity rate. It should be provided to residents on a regular, transparent basis. Governments across the country do it every day. El Paso's failure is mystifying. 7/

I asked city officials 2 weeks ago to provide me the underlying data used in its positivity rate calculation. They initially responded by giving me the formula (duh) which isn't what I asked for. When I pressed, a spokeswoman told me she'd check with "staff." 8/

Follow-up inquiries have been blown off. I'm asking for the simplest of data, which is daily test numbers and daily positive tests. It's the kind of data that most governments have on a dashboard. El Paso only publishes daily positives and provides no tracking of daily tests. 9/

I filed an open records request for the data and I'm waiting to hear back on that. The city has previously said on another request for COVID-19 data (locations of clusters) that the law allows but doesn't require it to release data, so they'll keep it from the public. 10/

Thanks for sticking with my rant. 11/