Florida changed its Covid death reporting method making toll look less bad, newspaper?s analysis claims
Health authorities in Florida, a state that is battling its deadliest surge in coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, appear to have tweaked the process of reporting deaths, a report suggests.
The Florida Department of Health on 10 August switched from reporting deaths on the day they were recorded, to new deaths by the date on which the person died, according to an analysis by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald newspaper
Experts have said that this shift in counting deaths is problematic, suggesting that it tampered with the true assessment of the Covid-19 disease spread.
?Florida showed an artificial decline in recent deaths and without an explanation or context, and it would seem like we are doing better than we are,? Shivani Patel, a social epidemiologist and assistant professor at Emory University was quoted as saying by the Miami Herald. ?It is extremely problematic especially since it came without warning or explanation during a rise in cases,? she said.
This means, going by the previous methodology, Florida death data should show an average of 262 daily deaths reported to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention over the previous week. But, the unexplained and sudden shift in counting deaths showed just 46 ?new death? per day in the last week, showing a significant dip in the death rate even as the cases and deaths continue to soar, the analysis pointed out.
Difference between the two methods is significant in terms of accurate reporting of data. In the first method, the deaths are counted on the date they occurred - which is a straight way to report them. This method is widely used for producing deaths and new cases by most states and countries.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/florida-covid-death-toll-reports-b1912193.html
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