Cooking COVID Books in Florida

Florida Gov. DeSantis appears to be covering up COVID-19 deaths as "pneumonia deaths".

Only the Grim Reaper will be the clear winner in this "fix". Only when we start dealing with real data will we clearly see the truth about the COVID pandemic and begin to defeat it.

Here's the whole story...

More evidence emerges that Ron DeSantis is deliberately under reporting COVID-19 deaths in Florida, Mark Sumner, Daily Kos, alternet.com, 28 May 2020.

"Back in April, it became clear that Florida was intentionally hiding a list of daily deaths that had previously been compiled by county medical examiners. Since that time, those examiners, as well as hospitals and local officials, have complained that the number of COVID-19 deaths being reported in Governor Ron DeSantis regular updates, doesn’t match what they’re seeing in their areas. Last week, the scientist behind Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard was fired after she says she refused to alter numbers as she was told."

"With 52,600 confirmed cases of COVID-19, Florida is in the top ten states when it comes to infections. But the 2,300 recorded deaths is less than half of those from Michigan, a state with a similar number of cases. Considering the number of elderly residents and retirement communities, Florida’s relatively light death toll seemed somewhat miraculous, and DeSantis has been bragging both about the “success” of his policies and sneering at pundits that warned of potential disaster from his refusal to enforce social distancing guidelines."

"But there’s still more evidence that “miracle” isn’t the right word. The correct word is “con.” Because it looks like DeSantis has been taking COVID-19 deaths out of one column and inserting them into another."

"Even before the state took what had always been public information and began to hide if behind a newfound concern for privacy, there was evidence that DeSantis was covering up COVID-19 in the “Sunshine State.” On April 17, the Sun Sentinel warned that there was a spike in “pneumonia deaths” indicating that COVID-19 was already present and active in the state at a time when the official test results were showing a handful of cases. Even though flu cases were winding down in mid-March, pneumonia deaths had continued to head straight up. State Department of Health officials refused to comment on whether there was a connection between the soaring death count and the coronavirus, even as the official number of COVID-19 remained low."

"As a infectious disease from George Mason University made clear, “It is likely that they missed some COVID-19 deaths and reported them as respiratory deaths.” However, while it might have been possible that deaths in March and early April were missed simply because state officials weren’t keyed to look for COVID-19 deaths, that certainly wasn’t true after that day."

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