CDC, state data vastly different
Analysis reveals discrepancy in reported testing numbers
The number of COVID-19 tests performed in Florida is far higher in data reported by the CDC than what’s reported by the state, according to a new analysis that calls the discrepancy “a cause for concern.”
As of May 16, the state had performed close to 700,000 COVID-19 tests, according to the Florida Department of Health; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that Florida had conducted more than 900,000 COVID-19 tests.
With a 33% difference between the two agencies, Florida is one of 10 states to report such large discrepancies in testing numbers, with Florida being the most extreme case, according to an analysis by The COVID Tracking Project, which compared cases, deaths and testing numbers reported by each state and by the CDC’s Data Tracker.
While Florida’s case and death numbers matched closely with CDC’s, the testing data did not, raising questions about how reliable the data is.
Good data is not only important to gain the public’s trust but also it helps researchers and scientists to take measures that protect people’s health, said Dr. Jay Wolfson, Senior Associate Dean for Health Policy and Practice at the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine.
“For years, we’ve underfunded the Department of Health. We’ve cut staffing. We’ve cut functions. We’ve reduced data analytics, so that when we have something like this suddenly come upon on us, we have a desperate need to have nearly real-time information about who’s getting sick and where they’re getting sick and what kind of symptom they’re displaying,” Wolfson said. “If we don’t have good data, then we’re literally flying blind.”
The report’s authors were not able to identify the source of discrepancy, but they speculated that maybe some labs are only reporting their results to the federal gov
ernment — even though in Florida all labs are required to report the numbers to the state — or maybe some of the tests counted by the federal government are duplicates.
The Florida Department of Health did not respond to a request for comment.
“We had not expected to see the CDC report a substantially higher test count than reported by any of the states. Given that reporting to state public health departments is generally mandatory, this is an unsettling discovery,” the authors wrote at The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-driven organization housed at The Atlantic, collecting and publishing COVID-19 data in the United States
The project’s analysis showed that in 29 states, the raw testing numbers reported by the states were about 10% different from the CDC’s, an acceptable difference by the authors. But in 13 states, including Florida, the difference was 25% or more.
California was on the other side of the spectrum, reporting 16% more tests than the CDC.
The COVID Tracking Project’s report was published days after the woman who created and ran Florida’s online coronavirus data site was removed from her job.
Rebekah Jones, who helped build the COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Dashboard, said her commitment to transparency resulted in her removal. Then, days later, she lost her job.
Internal emails show that Jones resisted when her bosses told her to cut off data so that users could no longer download it.
On May 15, Jones sent a group email to the state’s data users, telling them that she was removed from her positive as the GIS manager in the Division of Disease Control and Health Protection.
“They are making a lot of changes. I would advise being diligent in your respective uses of this data,” she wrote.
Helen Aguirre Ferré, communications director for Gov. DeSantis, said the dashboard is still a model of transparency.
“To the best of my knowledge, the website continues to be updated daily,” she told the Sun Sentinel, “and the information is accurate and publicly accessible.”
As of May 19, the difference between Florida’s and CDC’s testing numbers continued to persist, with Florida reporting more than 717,000 tests, while the CDC showed that the state has performed more than 962,000 tests, the Orlando Sentinel found.
“The people of the United States are left with two divergent databases of COVID-19 testing data from official government sources,” wrote the COVID Tracking Project report’s authors. “We believe it to be of vital importance to address these divergences and restore the partnership of state and federal public health authorities to provide a single, consistent, maximally useful database that every U.S. research team, governmental agency, newsroom, and member of the public can rely on.”