The Florida Department of Health has started using what one economist describes as a “statistical sleight of hand” to make daily COVID-19 deaths appear much lower than they actually are, according to a joint investigation by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald. The Herald reports that on Monday, when the previous week’s deaths were reported to the Center for Disease Control, Florida’s data should have reflected an average of 262 deaths every day, in accordance with its previous reporting system, but instead the state reported an average of just 46 deaths. The seemingly miraculous decline in deaths stems from a new method in reporting the deaths, according to the report. Rather than reporting new coronavirus deaths by the date the person died, Florida health officials began reporting them by the day the deaths were reported, leading to a lag time since it takes time for a death certificate to be issued and processed. A health department spokesperson told the Herald that there are “inherent delays” in reporting deaths that may make the data of the previous two weeks inaccurate, and that these are updated over time. Nowhere on the department’s website or public weekly reports do they acknowledge this.