FLORIDA: As fears grow around the state, officials are being criticized for how they are sharing updates — and for sometimes giving out incorrect information.
About three months into a new coronavirus outbreak, now declared a pandemic, Florida has reported a little more than two dozen positive cases of the disease and has performed fewer than 500 tests.
Orange and Miami-Dade counties, the hubs of travel and tourism, have reported no cases at all.
“It’s hard to believe,” said Dr. Dawn Davidson-Jockovich, a physician in Indian River County. “I cannot believe that there are no cases in those international hubs.”
Officials aren’t saying how many tests have been performed in each county, so it’s impossible to know whether there are no cases in those counties because there’s no COVID-19 or because there are low levels of testing.
As coronavirus fears grow, officials are being criticized for how they are sharing updates — and for sometimes giving out incorrect information.
For example, on Tuesday, the state health department issued a press release asking all people returning from international travel to stay home for 14 days. That recommendation was met with a swift backlash; within two hours, officials clarified that recommendation to only include individuals who have traveled to countries considered highrisk for the spread of coronavirus — China, Iran, Italy and South Korea — mirroring the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Also Tuesday, federal health officials said that Florida is one of four states with community spread of COVID-19, but then Gov. Ron DeSantis said there’s no community spread.
Then on that evening, at 10:42 p.m., the health department on Twitter announced eight new positive cases of COVID-19.
The tweet linked to the health department’s coronavirus website for more information. The only problem was that the website hadn’t been updated in more than 16 hours.
“We need numbers, counties at least. Please give facts,” a user replied.
Another person said, “Useless information unless you post location, recent travel history, whether they are travel or community cases, etc.”
When asked about the late release of the information, DeSantis said on Wednesday that he wanted to get the information out as quickly as possible.
“You don’t want to be reckless, you want it to be reliable, but I think just getting it out as quickly as possible upon us receiving the information from the Department of Health is the way to go,” he said at a press conference in Tallahassee. “And I think that they’ve done a good job of being timely and getting on a more assertive footing with that.”
The Florida Department of Health did not respond to a request for comment.
U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Winter Park, said that state officials need to do a better job.
“Floridians deserve better than what they are currently getting out of their state government on this public health crisis,” she said. “We are a top tourist destination and home to a lot of senior citizens who tend to be more vulnerable to this virus … there are lives at stake so my hope is that Florida state officials will prioritize information sharing and will be more clear and accurate in the communications that they do.”
Officials have never said exactly how many tests have been performed in the state. According to the Florida Department of Health, 301 people had tested negative and 147 were awaiting results as of Wednesday night.
There have also been 28 COVID-19 cases, two of which were in non-Florida residents, and two deaths.
The state is only reporting confirmed cases and not the presumptive positive cases, which are positive tests in state labs that have to be sent to the CDC for confirmation.
The low number of tests, the state’s strict criteria for ordering the tests and lack of transparency in data have frustrated some physicians like Davidson-Jockovich.
“Knowing more information about our community disease burden would help me know how to riskstratify patients. It would help me to know that there’s a widespread community outbreak and now I need to really be careful about every single person, or we don’t have a community outbreak yet and I need to think maybe this is the first patient, patient zero, in my county,” she said.
When the Orlando Sentinel asked Lake, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties about the number of COVID-19 tests, Orange and Osceola counties said that they couldn’t release the information to protect patient privacy.
“Due to the nature of a unique virus, such as COVID-19, to share how many people in each community that have been tested or are under public health monitoring could potentially release identifying information, especially in Florida’s smaller communities,” said Osceola County health department officials in an email.
But the state does report on individual cases for other conditions such as measles, specifying the county of residence.
“They’re falling back on this little clause that says something to the effect that it’s at their discretion [to share that info],” Murphy said. “But the way they’re interpreting and talking about it is that, ‘Oh, we’re prohibited from doing it.’ But the reality is that they’re not prohibited from sharing this information.”
In an Orange County news conference earlier this month, Dr. Raul Pino, director of the county health department, said fewer than 30 individuals were being monitored and they were “very, very low risk.” In a press conference a few days later, he said the numbers continued to be “very low” but didn’t provide additional details.
There have been more than 1,110 cases of COVID-19 in the United States and at least 32 deaths.
“It’s fair to say that as the trajectory of the outbreak continues, many people in the United States will at some point in time, either this year or next, be exposed to this virus, and there’s a good chance many will become sick,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC during a recent press briefing. “But again, based on what we know about this virus, we do not expect most people to develop serious illness.”
Preliminary reports show that about 80% of patients develop mild illness and recovered. About 15% to 20% develop serious illness. Only 2% of the cases were in people younger than 19.
“This seems to be a disease that affects adults and most seriously older adults starting at age 60,” said Messonnier.
The highest risk of serious illness and death is in people older than 80 years. People with serious underlying health conditions also are more likely to develop serious outcomes, including death, she said.
Still, doctors said that Floridians need to prepare and not panic.
“Do your part,” said Dr. Ajoy Kumar, a Florida physician and a member of American Academy of Family Physicians. “Wash your hands and cover your cough. Everybody has a part to play in this.”