For 105 days, COVID's death toll in Florida counties went missing

[Nevilledog]

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The Daily Beast
@thedailybeast
As the Delta wave surged across the nation this year, state officials in Florida withheld daily COVID data from the public, leaving many Floridians in the dark about how many people in their neighborhoods were dying

Florida Withheld Daily COVID Tolls for Nearly 4 Months
Between June 4 and Sept. 17, state officials withheld data from the public, leaving many Floridians in the dark.
thedailybeast.com
8:50 AM · Oct 17, 2021

Original story

https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2021/10/17/for-105-days-covids-death-toll-in-florida-counties-went-missing/

For 105 days this summer, while COVID-19 deaths soared across the state, Floridians had no idea how many of their neighbors were dying.

The Florida Department of Health knows how many people are dying in each county, but stopped telling the public on June 4. That’s when state officials stopped releasing daily pandemic data, switched to weekly reports and started withholding data once available to the public.

Instead of including county deaths in its weekly reports, the state directed the public to find that information via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But the CDC relied on Florida’s online portal of COVID data — which the state also took down in June. The CDC’s tally of deaths for Florida went blank.

The number of people dying in each Florida county went missing from June 4 through Sept. 17. Miscommunication has plagued the relationship between the state and federal agency since the start of the pandemic.

*snip*

[LisaL]

1. There were many posts on DU wondering why death count in FL appears to be dropping while cases go up

Mystery solved.

[ProfessorGAC]

24. Even Those Deaths Reported...

...weren't consistent.
Johns-Hopkins & Worldometer started adjusting for their trends by deleting the days of zero and average over the missing days.
We'd see zero, zero, zero, zero, 450. Those two outfits went back and changed data to 90 each day. But, for 4 days deaths were reported at zero.
I doubt that was coincidental.
Now, it's revealed that some counties weren't reporting at all.
There's seems little chance this was an oversight. We're 20 months into this pandemic and their data reporting process got worse? Makes no sense.

[Champp]

2. Republicans really do lie about almost everything

Republicans, along with their Evil Empire intimate komrades in Russia, are A PARTY OF LIES.

[Baitball Blogger]

9. +1

[calimary]

14. Especially anything that makes them look bad.

In other words, anything that makes them look like what they ARE.

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

[North Shore Chicago]

4. Republican leaders are sadists.

Their followers are masochists.

[Captain Zero]

8. been saying this since 2016

it's true. a very weird dynamic, but its how you end up with a death cult.

[FoxNewsSucks]

5. The direct covid death count has to be well over a million

but we'll never know because republicons are lying sacks of shit.

And there's probably at least that many more deaths of people who couldn't get treated because hospitals were full.

[SergeStorms]

7. Well never know...

the true number of deaths caused by the COVID virus, directly and indirectly. Like you said, how many people died from other illnesses and injuries because there were no facilities to treat them?

With republican Governors lying about the number of sick and dying just so their policies don't come into question, people won't know how their states faired.

The tone for republicans was set by one person: Donald Fucking Trump. He laid the groundwork for all the lies and deceit, and provided cover for the rest of his republican lackeys.

[Rebl2]

10. My husband

and I have said that as well. We will never know the real count because of Qrepublicons. I remember earlier in the summer there were families saying they didn’t want Covid listed on the death certificate of family members that died from it.

[ProfessorGAC]

25. Getting Close

I know a few actuaries that work for big insurance companies.
They've been telling me for over a year that the actual COVID deaths (based upon deaths in excess of predictive models) is at least 30% higher than the official values reported.
All 3, and they work for 3 different companies, say at least 30 and as high as 33, 34, & 36% respectively.
So, based on that, it's likely at least 970,000.

[SheltieLover]

6. K&R!

[Igel]

11. Not a surprise.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/09/health/us-coronavirus-wednesday/index.html

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/06/11/1004751742/states-scale-back-pandemic-reporting-stirring-alarm

Totals are still public record county-by-county, however, and can be obtained.

[OMGWTF]

12. If there is a silver lining, it's that Rethugs are dying 5x the rate of Dems

which could be enough to tip some elections in our favor.

[calimary]

20. Hey, whatever works!

If their own willful stupidity winds up killing them, they’re actually doing us all a favor.

[LymphocyteLover]

13. that seems fucking criminal

damn

[paleotn]

15. More than likely intentional miscommunication.

on the part of FL authorities.

[OrangeJoe]

23. Got that right

I like this COVID dashboard. While it seems to report the lying death figures from Florida in the "NEW DEATHS" column, it somehow aggregates them and uses a more accurate figure in the DEATH PER MILLION column. According to this Florida has gone from 14th in per capita deaths on September 13th to 10th now and shooting for 8th in a couple more weeks. Way to go Ron D, you are winning the death race! https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

[Maru Kitteh]

16. "Miscommunication" my ass in a handbasket.

What's worse is they showed other states/counties how to do the same. Nebraska, South Dakota, and it looks like my county in Montana as well.

Fuckers.

[relayerbob]

17. "Miscommunication"

No, it's intentional withholding of vital public health information, and criminal charges should be filed, IMO

[spanone]

18. Florida's governor couldn't care less about it's people.

just couldn't give a shit.

[SarcasticSatyr]

19. Bullshit ... that data is still inaccurate.

there were more deaths being reported in local and online news sources than is being listed.

[Fla Dem]

21. Florida stopped reporting daily numbers for counties and the state.

Florida only reports new cases and new death numbers by STATE weekly.
They report new case numbers by county weekly on Fridays.
Death numbers by county have not been reported since May 25, 2021.

I've been tracking since last year.

Getting my numbers form the John Hopkins Dashboard https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

My county; St Johns, has not had a death from Covid since 5/25/2021 according to those reports, nor has any other county. There were 221 deaths then and there are 221 deaths now.

However,State wide deaths have risen since 5/25/2021 from 36,592 to 57,859 as of this past Friday's reporting.

[ananda]

22. It's been so obvious.

I hope this isn't a surprise to anyone.