Slow on the uptake

Here's another doozy from Salem. They've paid some kids to make up a drug overdose "dashboard," so we can all go on the internet and see who's OD'ing from what. You would think a simple Excel spreadsheet would suffice, but you think, okay, a "dashboard."

Then you go there, and the latest data they're showing is for 2021. Yoo hoo, 18 months ago! There is some "preliminary" data for 2022, a mere six months ago, but no charts of any kind for fentanyl, in part because they didn't see that one coming until October 2020. It gets lumped in with "other opioids," I think, but the chart "preliminarily" shows a steep drop-off of deaths from such drugs in '22, which sure ain't the story with fentanyl.

Anyway, some day this could be a useful site. For something. Maybe. Right now? Not so much.

This latest gyration by the state health department reminds me of their feeble attempts to come up with an electronic Covid vaccination card. They got that one done, all right, just after the need for such a card ended.

You wonder what's next with these birds. Did you know that they're stil running a Covid poetry corner? And now they want you to tell them your stories about drugs for some sort of new literary effort on Facebook.

This is what they do all day? God forbid they should actually focus on concrete action that makes people healthier. Instead they're running haiku contests and drawing up fancy charts illustrating obsolete data.

I thought Governor Kohoutek was going to straighten things out down there. A vain hope, apparently.