FL Underreporting COVID-19 Cases, Deaths Health Group Claims

FLORIDA — Earlier in March, Gov. Ron DeSantis said lockdowns done by other states did not work, and that they've done great damage to the country, CNN reported. He said Florida got it right, and the state has been more successful as a result.

But a new report by a public health group disagrees with the GOP governor, and said the state has suffered needless deaths.

Florida was one of the first states to lift mask mandates in 2020, and fully reopen businesses.

The American Journal of Public Health reported March 10 that the affect of COVID-19 on mortality is significantly greater than the official COVID-19 data suggest.

"Our results suggest that Florida experienced 19,241 (15.5 percent) excess deaths above historical trends from March to September 2020, including 14,317 COVID-19 deaths, and an additional 4,924 all-cause, excluding COVID-19, deaths in that period," the journal said on its website.

An associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida, Jason Salemi, told Yahoo News that it was wrong to assume that every excess death during the period in question should be attributed directly to those who contracted the coronavirus, especially since people who were never infected may still have been fearful of seeking care for other conditions while the pandemic surged and hospitals filled with COVID-19 patients.

A public health economist at the University of Utah, Moosa Tatar, who led the research team analyzing the state's excess deaths, has a different view than Salemi, the online outlet reported. Tatar said he chose to focus on Florida because of how soon the governor lifted restrictions after the pandemic began. "I am sure that COVID-19 is responsible for most of these excess deaths," he expressed to Yahoo.

The DeSantis administration did not respond to Yahoo's request for comment.

After the news of Florida's COVID-19 numbers possibly being underreported was published, #DeathDesantis and #FloridaCOVID trended on Twitter Tuesday.

"#DeathSantis is the main reason I won't be spending my tourist dollars in FL," Terri Loves America tweeted. "They aren't the only state with beaches, booze or amusement parks."

This isn't the first time the Florida Department of Health has been accused of underreporting COVID-19 numbers. Last summer, Rebekah Jones, was fired from the Florida Department of Health for not altering numbers as suggested by her managers, she told media outlets.

As of Tuesday, the Florida Department of Health added a total of 5,062 new coronavirus cases, which brings the total number since the start of the pandemic to 2,052,441; 33,338 coronavirus-related deaths; and 84,973 hospitalizations.