Florida DPH Agrees To Release Withheld Data

[Maphistos_Sidekick]

Maybe there’s an already existent thread this could have been appended to, but I couldn’t easily find it.

2-Year Battle over Withheld COVID-19 Records Ends with Settlement

Access to COVID-19 data was restricted after Governor DeSantis decided to open Florida for business in June 2021 just as the Delta variant spread throughout the state. During the information blackout, thousands of Floridians died from COVID-19 in the summer and early fall of 2021.

“The Department lied about the existence of these public records in court and did everything to restrict information and downplay the threat of COVID even while the Delta variant ripped through Florida — a decision that cost many lives,” said Rep. Smith. “The DeSantis administration settled in our favor because they knew what they did was wrong. We held them accountable, we required them to be more transparent and to hand over records they claimed didn’t exist, and we protected the public’s constitutional right to know.”

The settlement agreement requires the Department to provide detailed COVID-19 data for the next 3 years, including vaccination counts, case counts, and deaths, aggregated weekly, by county, age group, gender, and race.

I suspect that Rep. Smith is incorrect in the reasons Florida settled; I’d bet that Florida settled because they were losing and knew that most folks who would potentially vote for DeSantis in state elections or federal primaries won’t care. But a politician’s gotta spin.

[Ajstudies]

@Maphistos_Sidekick

The settlement agreement requires the Department to provide detailed COVID-19 data for the next 3 years, including vaccination counts, case counts, and deaths, aggregated weekly, by county, age group, gender, and race.

How does this help anything, now that Covid is endemic?

[joejam]

Probably why they agreed. Drag out the lawsuit until you reach the point where no one cares any more about what happened in 2021 and release meaningless covid data for the next 3 years that no one will look at. Seems like a win for Desantis

[Rastiln]

Is this related to that female researcher who was fired for pushing back on what was reported as pressure on her reporting? Been so long but I’m near certain that was FL. But looks like this may have been a contemporary yet unrelated story.

[Maphistos_Sidekick]

@Rastiln

Is this related to that female researcher who was fired for pushing back on what was reported as pressure on her reporting? Been so long but I’m near certain that was FL. But looks like this may have been a contemporary yet unrelated story.

I think this was a separate thing, related in intent.

@Ajstudies

How does this help anything, now that Covid is endemic?

Prospectively, this settlement seems of limited utility.

Retrospectively…if you were a researcher looking into whether certain policy decisions had an impact on the progression of the pandemic…I’m guessing that the additional detail provided by the state (assuming they still captured it) would be useful, especially if it’s more granular than what might be available from federal sources.

And, of course, there’s the political aspect of it – the implications of the Desantis administration resisting the state’s sunshine laws, and being able to analyze the potential impacts of his administration’s COVID decisions, could theoretically be useful information to evaluate him as a candidate for President. However, I suspect that the given the nature of American politics these days, there’s a pretty wide gap when it comes to theory and reality on that point.