Florida COVID update: Reporting change causes lag in death data
Florida reported 1,569 COVID-19 cases and no new deaths, according to Thursday’s report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on Miami Herald calculations of CDC data.
Since last Friday, Florida has only added four deaths to its COVID tally — at least according to the data reported on the CDC website.
However, behind the scenes, the CDC has been working with the Florida Department of Health to return to a previously used reporting method, causing a lag in the reporting of deaths, the Herald learned Wednesday.
“On Monday, November 1, CDC began transitioning jurisdictions reporting by event date back to report date,” Jasmine Reed, a spokeswoman for the CDC, said in an email to the Miami Herald.
Throughout the pandemic, the CDC was reporting deaths by date of report for Florida. Then, on Aug. 10 amid a surge in cases due to the delta variant, the state health department began providing a new set of data biweekly to the CDC, which reported deaths by date of occurrence, giving the appearance of a pandemic in decline.
Now, the health department would have to switch back to the way it reported cases before the summer change, according to the CDC.
“Due to reporting changes, there was a lag in death data updates for Florida. CDC is working with the Florida Department of Health to correct the issue,” the statement said.
The state health department has not responded to multiple requests for more information from the Miami Herald.
In all, Florida has recorded at least 3,656,010 confirmed COVID cases and 59,499 deaths.
In the past seven days, on average, the state has added 1,543 cases per day, according to Herald calculations of CDC data. Since, according to published CDC data, the state has only added four deaths in the last seven days, the average for deaths added is one. However, this is likely incorrect due to the lag cited by the CDC.
FLORIDA COVID VACCINE RATES
About 12,872,953 eligible people in Florida — 59.9% of the state’s population — have completed the two-dose series of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or have completed Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
VACCINATIONS IN SOUTH FLORIDA AND MANATEE COUNTY
Here’s how many people have been fully vaccinated in South Florida and Manatee County, according to the CDC.
▪ In Miami-Dade County, about 2,066,105 people, or 76% of the county’s total population, are fully vaccinated.
▪ In Broward County, about 1,245,798 people are fully vaccinated, or 63.8% of the county’s population.
▪ In Palm Beach County, about 902,813 people are fully vaccinated, or 60.3% of the county’s population.
▪ In Monroe County, about 52,278 people are fully vaccinated, or 70.4% of the county’s population.
▪ In Manatee County, about 224,992 people are fully vaccinated, or 55.8% of the county’s population.
Florida COVID-19 Hospitalizations
There were 1,825 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Florida, according to a Thursday report by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, which compiled data from 251 Florida hospitals. Hospitalized COVID patients dropped by 40 from Wednesday’s report, when 233 hospitals submitted data. This continues a trend of decreasing hospitalizations.
COVID-19 patients take up 3.20% of all inpatient beds in the latest report’s hospitals, compared to 3.43% in the previous day’s reporting hospitals.
Of the people hospitalized in Florida, 443 people were in intensive care unit beds, an increase of six. That represents about 7.25% of the state’s ICU hospital beds, compared to 7.03% the previous day.
Broward County’s Thursday report said there were 174 COVID patients in the county’s hospitals, a decrease of eight from the previous day’s report.
This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 2:03 PM with the headline "Florida COVID update: Reporting change causes lag in death data."
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