ORLANDO, Fla. — For months the state of Florida has released daily reports tracking coronavirus cases. Spectrum News 13’s Watchdog team has been digging deep into those numbers and uncovered several inconsistencies.
What You Need To Know
- COVID-19 data is critical in state decision-making
- Expert says there may be inconsistencies due to overwhelmed system
- COMPLETE COVERAGE: Latest coronavirus updates in Florida
Both state and local agencies use the daily COVID-19 numbers to make critical decisions that impact the lives of Floridians — like mask orders or back-to-school plans.
Our Watchdog team compared daily case numbers on the state’s dashboard and in their full report released daily in a PDF format. We also calculated the positivity rate using the state’s own formula.
The numbers don’t match up.
Spectrum News reached out to the Florida Department of Health for clarity, and a spokesperson said they would get back to us. We also spoke to Gov. Ron DeSantis about the issue.
“When you do the percent positive for new cases, it’s the total number of tests minus those who have previously tested, regardless of whether it is positive or negative,” DeSantis said.
The Florida Department of Health officials, however, say they only factor in people who have previously tested positive for COVID-19.
Our team took the agency’s publically posted data and did the math — trying a half a dozen times to get the same results as Florida DOH but could not arrive to that.
Discrepancies in state coronavirus numbers is something lawmakers on both sides of the aisle can agree on. Democratic Florida Sen. Linda Stewart and Republican Rep. Anthony Sabatini say more oversight is needed for state coronavirus numbers.
“The legislature needs to take a good look at this, if that means a special session or an investigation to scrub these numbers — that is what we need to be doing,” Sabatini said.
Stewart said, “We place our value on you know, going back to school, going back to work how we are going to ask businesses to operate based on data. When the data is inconsistent or even flat out incorrect, it’s very hard to make these decisions.”
Those decisions will ultimately impact millions of Floridians. Dr. Raul Pino with Florida Department of Health in Orange County says the state is factoring out repeat positives, but he said including repeat negatives is a fair calculation.
“The idea is to be able to calculate the positivity rate. So if a person is negative, if someone gets tested every single day of the week, then that day the person got tested is the rate for that day, and that person should be (included). That is the explanation, because it is the rate for that day,” Pino said.
While the state wouldn’t show us an example of its calculations, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings still said he feels there’s enough information available to make smart decisions.
“The numbers may not be 100 percent accurate, but I believe that the totality of the numbers that we have (been) given is an accurate picture by which to make public policy,” Demings said.
An expert from the University of Central who spoke to Spectrum news said she believes there are inconsistencies because the system is overwhelmed with reporting data to the Florida Department of Health.
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