House leader challenges Fla. death statistics

TALLAHASSEE — House Democrats and a Florida medical examiner slammed a report released by the FloridaHouse on Tuesday that — along with a memo from Speaker Jose O li va—cast doubt on the official C OVID -19 death statistics reported by state health officials.

“Numberone, I don’t need a politician to tell me howto domy job,” said Dr. Joshua Stephany, chief medical examiner for two Florida counties. “Andas far as overcounting or undercounting ... I think in the long run, it evens out.”

Oliva, R-Miami Lakes, commissioned a report by House staffers looking into the death numbers provided by the Florida Department of Health, which relies on data reported by local medical examiners.

The report criticized several aspects of medical examiners’ data, including that all deaths in which a positive COVID-19 case is detected are counted as a coronavirus-related death. That is something guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention require.

The report looked at 13,920 reported deaths as of Sept. 23, and found that 11,460 listed COVID-19 as the underlying cause, or 82%. Another 1,204 listed COVID-19 as one factor that caused the death, but not the underlying cause; and 1,254 others listed COVID-19 as a contributing factor that made the death more likely but wasn’t the cause of death.

The report suggested that resources were stretched because of the pandemic and medical examiner sun familiar with the patient’ s history could have skewed the data.

“It is possible that pandemic conditions led to more death certificates being completed by physicians or medical examiners who had limited knowledge of the patients and by officials facing significant workload pressures ,” the report states.

But Stephany, chief medical examiner in Orange and Osceola counties, explained it differently.

Some cases may not be counted because the patients or their remains are never tested, he said, and some may be overcounted because the patients test positive for COVID but they don’t have symptoms and die due to other reasons.

“When you’re dealing with the numbers that we’re dealing with, I just think it’s ridiculous and being nitpicky,” said Stephany, referring to more than 15,000 Floridians who have died fromthe infection. “Do you think the Census is correct? There’s no way that the Census is 100% accurate. You’re never going to get anything 100%.”

In his memo, Oliva said the data from medical examiners are “often lacking in rigor” which “undermines the completeness and reliability of the death records.”

“Precision in data is imperative, not just for proper decision-making, but also for public confidence and consistency of response ,” Oliva wrote.

O li va is term-limited and has only 21 days left in office. He didn’t call for a special session to address the lack of resources and new for medical examine rs that the report recommends to improve the data.

Democrats panned the memo as a political move to downplay Republicans’ refusal to hold a special session to address other aspects of the pandemic, such as Florida’ s unreliable unemployment benefits system.

“It does nothing to alleviate any situation,” said Rep. Evan Jenne, D-Dania Beach, who will be co-leader of the House Democrats after the election .“It’ s strictly there to muddy the waters.”

Rep. Amy Mercado, D-Orlando, said the memo and the report was an insult to coronavirus victims.

“It’s basically to downplay the death toll, and it’s a slap in the face to the families that are actually dealing with this,” Mercado said.

Oliva did not respond to a call seeking comment.

The impact of the pandemic on lives lost goes beyond just the number of people who die from the infection.

In a study published last month in the Journal of Public Health, University of South Florida researchers calculated years of life lost, which takes into account the number of deaths and the age of those who died.

They showed that nationwide about 1.2 million years of life have been lost between February and July because people died sooner due to the infection.

In Florida, nearly 40,000 years of life were lost during the firstfive months of the pandemic, whenthe state had reported less than a third of deaths it is reporting today, USF researchers showed.