‘We need transparency’: State rep. calls for Florida to reinstate daily COVID-19 case data

ORLANDO, Fla. — For more than a year, the Florida Department of Health issued daily reports telling us the ages and race of COVID-19 cases and deaths, hospitalizations, nursing home locations with outbreaks, positivity rates, and individual county breakdowns.

But now that the same information is tough to get.

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“This is reckless,” Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, district 49, said. “We need leadership, we need transparency, we need data. and we need the state to finally take action to get this crisis under control.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releases daily case counts for each state, but on Monday on Twitter the department of health called out the CDC, saying its daily case count for Florida was incorrect.

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The CDC said Florida had more than 28,000 new cases on Monday, but the state said that number includes the case counts for the last three days.

“They can fix this right now by reinstating the daily COVID dashboard. No one would be confused,” Smith said.

In June, the state stopped issuing its daily reports, saying it was no longer necessary because the positivity rate was less than 5%, the state was returning to normal, and vaccines were widely available.

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Gov. Ron DeSantis was asked about reinstating that on Tuesday.

“I’ll talk to the health department about it,” DeSantis said. “At the end of the day, they do a very thorough report on Fridays that has all the indicators that you would want.”

But Smith said he made a public records request for pediatric hospitalization and case numbers and it was denied.

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The state’s response said the information is considered confidential.

“Which makes absolutely no sense. I’m not asking for the names of patients or their social security numbers,” Smith said. “I’m asking for raw numbers.”

Smith sits on the House pandemic and public emergency committee.

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“If I don’t have access to this crucial public health data in the middle of a pandemic, who does?” He said.

Smith said the information should be available to everyone, so people can make informed decisions on protecting themselves and their family.