Florida potentially ‘manipulated Covid-19 death data ahead of election’, report says

During an analysis of Florida’s Covid-19 death tally reported each day, it was found the state potentially “manipulated a backlog of unreported fatalities” ahead of the presidential election, according to a report in the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Florida has consistently shown a lag in the time someone died from the novel virus and reporting their death in the public county of daily deaths.

But the newspaper found the state stopped logging backlogged deaths, with minor exceptions, on 24 October, 10 days before the election, and then resumed consistently including that count on 17 November – two weeks after the election.

Residents in the state instead saw a lower number of daily deaths from the novel virus compared to the actual numbers during that span of time around the election, according to the report. 

This lag came just three days after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the state would conduct an additional review of each Covid-19 death prior to adding it to the daily total, which could have contributed to the gap.

The governor, a Republican, has often downplayed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic and speculated if the Covid-19 deaths data was inflated in the state.

Florida officials, including the state’s Department of Health, were contacted about the gap in data over the election, but all declined to comment, the newspaper reported.

Scott David Herr, a Florida computer scientist who tracks the daily coronavirus data, told the Sun Sentinel that he was equally perplexed by the gaps in reporting coronavirus deaths in the state.

“It’s hard to know if there was a limitation around election time or random other things were happening,” he said. “The Department of Health hasn’t explained why lags have been inconsistent. When they keep changing whatever is going on behind the scenes, when the lags keep changing, that is where it gets confusing.”

Mr DeSantis’ administration changed the requirements for reporting Covid-19 deaths multiple times throughout the pandemic, as questions surrounding the accuracy of Florida’s coronavirus data increased.

One of the new requirements, which were announced on 21 October, removed deaths that occurred one month earlier from the daily total. This key data point was a significant part of Florida’s daily death tolls because of how long it can sometimes take for a death report to arrive from a doctor to the state health department.

About 44 per cent of backlogged deaths made up daily death totals from 23 September to 20 October, according to the Sun Sentinel. But over the week of the election only one death was included in the daily death toll that was backlogged.

This report from the Sun Sentinel comes at a time when Mr DeSantis and his administration has been accused of manipulating coronavirus data by Rebekah Jones, a former Florida Covid-19 data scientist.

She was fired by the state in May 2020 after she questioned the validity of the Covid-19 data, claiming officials were manipulating the numbers to look better than they actually were to the public.

State officials have consistently denied any claims of misinformation regarding coronavirus data.