No more updates to Florida’s daily COVID dashboard. There are weekly reports now
Florida will no longer update its COVID-19 dashboard that tracked the number of cases and deaths in the state. Its daily COVID-19 cases and vaccine reports have also stopped.
Instead, it will post weekly reports on Fridays, Florida Department of Health Communications Director Weesam Khoury told the Miami Herald.
The report has a new format, with condensed information. Some of the changes: The statewide cases and death counts no longer include non-Florida residents, which made up 43,535 cases and 744 deaths in the state. Now the data only looks at Florida residents.
Testing information is also no longer available. The nine-page report is more vaccine focused and does give some additional information not found in previous vaccination reports, including a breakdown by county of what percent of people 12 and older are vaccinated and a “Cases per 100,000 population” figure for each county.
Some of the new information, like the percent of people vaccinated and the cases per 100,000 population, was already available online through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Johns Hopkins University.
Reports on schools, long-term care facilities no longer published
Other COVID-19 reports are also no longer available at floridahealthcovid19.gov.
This includes reports on associated cases in schools, associated deaths at Florida Department of Corrections facilities, and a pediatric report that showed how many children in Florida were diagnosed with MIS-C, a rare and sometimes deadly disease believed to be linked to COVID-19. A report on long-term care facilities, which had already been replaced by a less-detailed weekly report, is also gone.
The end of the state’s daily reports was first announced last week in a news release and is part of Florida’s plan to transition into the next phase of its COVID-19 response since cases are decreasing and vaccinations are increasing.
State-run testing sites closed last month and state-run vaccine sites are set to close by the end of June, though counties can convert them to county-run sites to keep them open. Florida’s plan is to leave vaccine distribution to county health departments and local providers, including doctors’ offices, pharmacies and clinics.
Health department cites vaccinations
When asked why the state decided to stop issuing daily COVID reports, Khoury said the following in an email:
“More than 10.3 million Floridians have been vaccinated — accounting for more than half of Florida’s eligible population. Eighty-five percent of Florida’s seniors are vaccinated. Florida’s case positivity has been below 5% for more than three weeks. Cases in seniors ages 65 and older are the lowest since early in the pandemic.
“Infections and disease control is a core function of the Florida Department of Health. The department will continue to adapt and respond to COVID-19 to protect public health statewide. Nearly 90% of the population is eligible for the vaccine, and widely available statewide.”
Florida has confirmed more than 2 million COVID-19 cases and more than 37,000 deaths since March 2020. More than 10 million people in Florida have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
About 45.3% of people ages 12 and older in Florida are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data. Nationwide, 48.8% of people 12 and older in the United States have been fully vaccinated, the CDC says.
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 4:50 PM.
