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As COVID cases and hospitalizations in Florida retreat from all-time highs, the death toll hits record highs – more than 300 people die each day during a period in late August, with more deaths added once they are confirmed.
But the state is no longer releasing what was public information revealing details of these victims and the counties they lived in when they were struck by a virus that has now killed 48,273 Floridians.
State Representative Carlos Smith (D-Orlando) and a nonprofit government accountability group are suing the Department of Health to force the state to spit out the data.
“They claim that the basic local COVID data that we requested through a public record was confidential, which is totally false,” Smith said. “It cannot be confidential as they claim it is now without it having been before.”
Until June 3, the state released a detailed two-page report for each of the 67 counties, detailing cases, hospitalizations and deaths broken down by 10 age cohorts.
Since then, it has published weekly summaries that reveal how many new cases have been detected in each county (as well as the counties’ positivity and vaccination rates)
“The public does not have access to real-time information about a deadly virus,” Smith said.
The information is reduced as the number of deaths increases as more deaths are confirmed to be linked to COVID. On Thursday, the CDC reported the death of a record 330 Floridians on August 20, the start of a five-day period where the seven-day average exceeded 300 deaths per day.
Previously, that average peaked at 228 during the summer 2020 outbreak and 201 during the winter virus wave that followed the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
The state wouldn’t tell NBC 6 why it is withholding data that was previously public. Instead, a spokesperson for the health department highlighted the county data he provides to the CDC.
But this data is incomplete and does not break down county-level deaths by age or other demographics.
It also does not reveal which county the person resided in, only where they died – so rural residents transferred to other counties with better hospital care would not be counted in their county of residence – which the data does. state have done.
Additionally, under its privacy policy, the CDC deletes thousands of results in smaller counties.
Smith said there was not enough data for Floridians to “protect themselves and their families with informed decisions about what is going on with the deadly virus in their area.”
For example, the data the state now keeps hidden could be used to research whether children in counties with school mask mandates are doing better or worse than those who attend schools that have not challenged the Governor Ron DeSantis’ ban on school mask warrants, which a judge has now ruled illegal.
The data is needed, said Smith, “so that we can not only understand what the trends are in our community, but perhaps glean from that data … what kind of impact our mitigation efforts are having both. in schools and in our communities. “
The lawsuit, which calls for a fast-track hearing, was assigned to the same Leon County circuit judge who ruled against DeSantis’ ban on mask warrants.
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