Florida also excludes travelers and seasonal residents who died in the state, though medical examiners include them
Igor Derysh
April , : PM (UTC)
Florida health officials have stopped publishing real-time coronavirus death data reported by medical examiners after they showed a higher number of fatalities than the official state total. The Sunshine State has not released lists compiled by the state Medical Examiners Commission in the last nine days . The updates stopped after The Tampa Bay Times reported that the medical examiners’ death count was 19% higher than the number reported by the Florida Department of Health.
Dr. Stephen Nelson, who heads the commission, told the outlet that the change in policy came after state health officials “intervened.”
“It’s just shocking to me the level of interference,” Barbara Petersen of the First Amendment Foundation told The Times. A spokesperson for the health department in Hillsborough County argued that the discrepancies in the state’s numbers could be due to a lag in reporting. Florida also excludes travelers and seasonal residents who died in the state, even though medical examiners do include them.
Email: [email protected] Twitter: @ IgorDerysh
Igor Derysh
(Read More) (Full coverage and live updates on the Coronavirus (Covid- 20)
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings