Biden COVID team releases ‘previously hidden’ state data
The new White House COVID-19 team released its first “previously hidden” state profiles Wednesday, showing Florida’s coronavirus infection rate fell 19% last week but deaths continued to climb.
The state profiles were previously shared by the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force only with state officials, and most states, including Florida, never released them to the public. The Orlando Sentinel had to file a lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis in December to force the disclosure of the information.
“We are now sharing previously hidden weekly COVID-19 state profile reports with the public,” Dr. Cyrus Shahpar, the new White House COVID-19 data director said in a tweet Wednesday afternoon, which linked to the reports.
The move, the reports’ authors said, is part of an effort to “develop a shared understanding of the current status of the pandemic” across national, state and local levels.
The Florida profile, for the week ending Jan. 23, found that 12.3% of laboratory COVID-19 tests were positive for the virus, above the national 10.6% average, but that the rate of new cases was falling. Deaths, which lag behind infections by several weeks, climbed 7% compared to the previous week.
In the past three weeks,
Miami-Dade, Broward and Orange counties ranked one, two and three in the state for the number of new coronavirus cases.
For now, the White House profiles do not have the state-specific recommendations of previous weekly reports, which had warned Florida officials of increasing infection rates, deaths, the dangers of virus mutations and the need for educating residents on the importance of wearing masks.
Still, public health officials and data scientists applauded the move toward greater transparency.
“Getting these reports out in Florida was [a] long and arduous battle ... and something staff at the state bravely leaked to myself and others to ensure the information got out,” tweeted Rebekah Jones, the data scientist who helped create
Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard but was arrested on charges of illegal use of the state’s computer system.
The latest report also showed that nearly a third of Florida’s nursing homes reported at least one new infection among their residents, and 57% reported at least one new infection in their staff. Both measures are a slight drop from the previous week, but, as in the state overall, the number of nursing home residents dying of the virus rose. Some 12% of facilities reported at least one new death, an increase of 2%.
Hospitals had another 9,332 COVID patients admitted last week, the report said, a drop of 7%, but 8% reported a shortage of supplies and 4% a shortage of staff.