Health officials agree to release variant data
A judge on Wednesday ordered the Florida Department of Health to release information on COVID-19 variant cases to the Orlando Sentinel and pay the newspaper’s legal fees, settling a lawsuit over the state’s withholding of critical public health data.
The agreement calls for the department to release future information on variant infections within one business day — barring “unanticipated circumstances,” in which case the department must provide the information “as expeditiously as possible,” according to the settlement.
The case marked the second time in four months the newspaper has prevailed in its legal attempts to obtain public health information from state officials.
“We are pleased that the state has agreed to release the COVID variant data within a day of our requests so that we can inform the public in a more timely way,” said Julie Anderson, editor-inchief of the Orlando Sentinel Media Group as well as the Sun Sentinel Media Group. “What the data has shown so far is that Central Florida and Florida in general are hotspots for the variants, and that’s an important part of the story as the state rushes to vaccinate the population and overcome COVID.”
The newspaper filed its lawsuit against the department March 18 for allegedly violating the state’s public records law by refusing for 57 days to release detailed information on the location of mutated strains of COVID19, even as such cases rapidly multiplied.
The suit claimed a “strong, immediate need ... to understand how the virus continues to spread and affect Floridians.”
In anticipation of the settlement, Florida health officials released countyby-county data late last week showing the state had recorded 5,177 cases involving five “variants of concern” — a designation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for mutations that make the virus more transmissible, deadly or resistant to treatment and current vaccines.
Florida has consistently topped the nation in the number of reported variant cases, despite testing less than 1% of all COVID infections.
So far, the vaccines approved for emergency use have been found to be largely effective against the strains, but some scientists are concerned that, if the virus continues to spread, future mutations may prove harder to stop.
The White House last week announced an almost $2 billion plan to enhance the nation’s ability to track coronavirus variants — a move that top COVID advisor Andy Slavitt said is needed to “detect these variants early on before dangerous outbreaks.” About half of the money would go to federal and state efforts to test for the variants.
As part of the settlement, filed in Leon County Circuit Court, the state agreed to pay $5,366.85 in attorney fees to the firm retained by the paper, Shullman Fugate.
In December, the Sentinel filed a lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis and his office for failing to provide the weekly White House Coronavirus Task Force reports in a timely manner. The state ultimately agreed to settle that lawsuit, providing all past reports and agreeing to release future reports within two business days. It also agreed to pay $7,500 in attorney fees.
The Florida Department of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s settlement.
STACEY WESCOTT/CHICAGO TRIBUNE