Secrecy about coronavirus data leads to one conclusion: We’re on our own in Florida | Opinion
Why are the names of the COVID-19 diseased important?
Because they were somebody, not just an anonymous number on a state spread sheet.
Because they had lives and loved ones we should acknowledge.
Because it’s wrong for the rest of us to miss out on the opportunity to learn from their stories and their struggle with the highly infectious disease.
Names are state secret
But names of victims are a state secret in Florida, redacted like classified material from reports.
Despite criticism and calls for him to stop heavily censoring records, Gov. Ron DeSantis has decided to keep the public in the dark about several coronavirus public interest issues. It’s a misguided move designed to control information — and the messaging on how the pandemic is impacting the state.
Advocates of open, transparent, and accountable government believe the secrecy is a violation of Florida’s open records laws.
What’s the governor afraid of?
That the public would see these victims in their full humanity, that we would feel for them, that we would learn that their deaths could’ve been avoided if only we had reacted sooner, informed them better, revealed data at a more urgent pace than in droplets at a time?
That journalists would find shoddy, incongruous data-keeping?
The Miami Herald’s investigative reporters have already done that, revealing inconsistent statistics on deaths between the Florida Department of Health and the county medical examiners.
Providing names also serves another kind of public service.
Names can help enhance contact tracing, one of the must-climb pillars to open the state economy safely. This difficult task of tracking down individuals who might have been in contact with an infected person is assisted by dogged journalism, not secrecy.
Nursing homes and prisons
Names are not the only thing the governor is hiding.
He also has refused to release, or only partially released under the threat of a media lawsuit, information on the extent of COVID-19 infections in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
The state’s data on nursing homes has been so unreliable that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez issued an executive order this week requiring nursing homes and assisted living facilities to disclose coronavirus cases and deaths to the county.
Likewise for prisons, where the highly contagious disease has rapidly spread because confinement in tight quarters keeps inmates from being able to practice the required isolation and social distancing, and testing has been lacking. Five Florida inmates had died as of this writing.
Withholding names in a public health crisis of epic proportions is particularly galling because Florida law provides for their release.
Patient confidentiality regulations are subject to exemptions.
One of them is “due to the highly infectious nature of the disease.” It is also allowed if release of the information helps reduce “the potential for further outbreaks” — and if the information assists in contact tracing.
The coronavirus outbreak ticks all those boxes.
And there’s plenty of precedent on the issue of releasing the names of victims in mass tragedies.
Passenger lists of downed airplanes, the dead in car accidents, and in school shootings are routinely released after next of kin are notified.
In the end, if for nothing else, we need the names to remember the victims.
Almost 3,000 names are inscribed in bronze on the poignant 9-11 Memorial in New York City, each one a tribute to a life lost on that terrible day.
You will come upon this heart-breaking entry: Dianne T. Signer and her unborn child. She was an office assistant working on the 93rd floor of the World Trade Center, north tower. She was five days away from her destination wedding in the Bahamas and six months away from becoming a mother. She was 32 and loved dancing.
We aren’t being allowed to tell the stories of the Diannes of coronavirus in Florida, where the death tally climbed to a grim 1,600 this week and the number of confirmed cases neared 39,000.
Hiding information
Hiding information is what totalitarian regimes do.
Isn’t that what we criticize about Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela — all suspected of downplaying their rate of COVID-19 infection to look better to the outside world for economic and political gain?
People need transparency from their governor to make personal decisions about whether to return to the workplace instead of working from home, whether they eat at a restaurant or keep cooking at home only, whether they visit loved ones or postpone all travel.
The governor forgets that Florida isn’t called the Sunshine State only for its weather, but also for its public records laws.
His secrecy can only lead to one conclusion: We are on our own in Florida.
Proceed with caution in the dark.
This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
