EC Kansas News

Kansas state Sen. Caryn Tyson (R-Parker) expressed outrage following evidence of data manipulation by Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) Secretary Lee Norman, who recently misconstrued COVID-19 case charts in order to support Gov. Laura Kelly's mask mandate.

Norman shared a chart with the public last week that he said represented COVID cases in counties that followed Kelly's mask requirement compared to those that hadn't. While Norman alleged that those who are following the mask mandate are "winning the battle," the statistics are deceptively presented to justify mandatory masks, according to an August 9 article in The Sentinel.

The chart clearly shows the counties with mask mandates as having fewer daily cases of COVID than those without the mandate, but the two figures are represented on completely different axes. 

The counties with mask requirements are based on the left axis, which ranges from 15 to 25, while those without the mandate are based on a secondary axis to the right side of the graph, which has a scale of 4 to 14. The resulting visual representation gives a false indication that the cases in the unmasked counties are much higher than they actually are. 

"Placing one chart over another to distort the facts and support the governor’s decision to wear masks is unacceptable," Tyson told the East Central Kansas News. "The use of inaccurate data by the Secretary of KDHE is disgraceful. It reflects what is going on in the nation with Democrat leadership, using misinformation to push their political agenda."

The Sentinel found that, on a graph where the different types of counties are represented on the same axis, the number of cases in non-masked counties doesn't rise over the numbers in masked counties at all—and mask-mandated counties are seeing an average of 77% more daily cases than those that are not requiring masks. 

The publication also reported that KDHE didn't respond to an Open Information request on the names of the counties and other data used to configure Norman's chart—but did find that the counties in his control group are widely different, ranging from urban to rural and from experiencing COVID outbreaks to no COVID cases.

“At a time when the public needs government to provide sound conclusions with accurate information, it’s unfortunate the Kansas Health Secretary knowingly deceived the public into justifying his narrative," Michael Austin, director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Government, told The Sentinel. 

He noted that Norman's graph doesn't represent a valid experiment due to the presence of too many of the previously mentioned variables. 

Kansas House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins also told The Sentinel that the KDHE's and Kelly administration's lack of transparency is a problem. 

"Governor Kelly and her administration have failed Kansans time and again, but manipulating data to intentionally deceive the entire state is a new low," Hawkins said. He said that Gov. Kelly's "politics-first" response to the pandemic had cost tens of thousands of jobs and businesses. "It is reprehensible for a public servant like Dr. Norman that we trusted to protect our health and safety in a nonpartisan way to intentionally spread misinformation. The Kelly administration has lost all credibility.”