The virus spread through Central and North Florida in January under the guise of the flu and the earliest cases included both residents and visitors, the Miami Herald reported. Claude Dharamraj, former leader of the Pinellas County Health Department, told the Palm Beach Post that tracing the disease within the first two months of 2020 would have been difficult for state health officials. Patients were likely not tested for the virus at the time as there was a shortage of national tests. In addition to the shortage, testing was limited to those who had traveled from China. “It’s very possible that in Florida the virus was spreading and people, being at the peak of flu season, probably thought they had the flu,” she said.
While Florida reported its first case on March 1, the data analysis shows reported symptoms between Dec. 31 and Feb. 29. Of the 171 patients, 105 were women and 66 were men. The majority of them reported no travel; their ages ranged from 4 to 91 years old. None of the 171 cases were publicly announced. This data, which documented patients with symptoms or positive test results prior to March 1, was removed from the Department of Health website by the state Monday night without explanation.
Prior to deleting the information Monday, the state would publicly share information on each coronavirus case without identifying the patient. According to the Palm Beach Post, the shared information would include two important dates: one pertaining to reported symptoms and the other when the patient received a positive test result. While data on COVID-19 cases returned to the state’s Department of Health site later Monday night, it no longer included the date on which symptoms were reported.
“Many of us have long suspected that there were undetected cases in the U.S. long before we had our first confirmed case,” Eric Toner of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security told the Miami Herald. He added that the data “helps to explain what appeared to be a sort of explosive outbreak out of nowhere.”
This isn’t the only time Florida has been shady with its data. For weeks, news outlets and advocates sought access to a list of Florida fatalities as a result of the virus compiled by medical examiners. While the state finally released the records Wednesday, they were lacking sufficient information, the Miami Herald reported.
In addition to the illnesses resulting from the coronavirus and causes of death, names were missing from the documentation. The head of the Florida Medical Examiner’s Commission said this information was subject to disclosure under state law, but Gov. Ron DeSantis warned them to keep the information private. “The Department of Health is telling the medical examiners it cannot release this information that the medical examiners have been releasing on a regular basis,” Barbara Petersen, president emeritus of the First Amendment Foundation, told the Miami Herald.
“For whatever reason, our governor is trying to hide information — first about nursing homes, and now from medical examiners. They are trying to paint a rosy picture by refusing to provide us accurate information that allows us to make informed decisions about the health and safety of our families,” Petersen added.
As of this week, Florida has recorded more than 37,000 cases of the deadly virus, Palm Beach Post reported. DeSantis has been downplaying the severity of the coronavirus since it was first reported. In March, despite having cases confirmed in the state, DeSantis denied community spread and claimed Florida residents were safe and responsible while viral images of residents and spring breakers circulated online. It wasn’t until there were more than 100 deaths and 8,000 confirmed cases that DeSantis issued a stay-at-home order on April 1.
Source: http://feeds.dailykosmedia.com/~r/dailykosofficial/~3/73T7hUeyl-U/-Where-s-the-data-Florida-removes-proof-of-over-100-COVID-19-cases-going-back-to-December