TROUBLING

Florida, Nebraska Nix Daily COVID Reporting as Cases Soar in All 50 States

The U.S. is averaging about 43,000 new cases a day, three times what it was two weeks ago.

As COVID-19 cases soar in all 50 states due to the Delta variant, some states have taken the odd approach of shifting their daily case reporting to weekly figures. Florida, Nebraska, Iowa, and North Dakota made the shift in recent weeks, giving people an inconclusive view of the virus’ impact. “There was absolutely no reason to eliminate the daily updates beyond an effort to pretend like there are no updates,” Florida State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat, told the Associated Press. The state has averaged about 10,000 cases a day for the last two weekly reports, with some hospitals seeing record numbers of COVID-19 patients. Nebraska had actually eliminated all public reports on the virus weeks ago, forcing reporters to file multiple public records requests that eventually led to the creation of a site with weekly numbers.

The tracking slowdown comes as the U.S. saw about 43,700 cases a day over the last week, a surge propagated by the Delta variant and the unvaccinated. The states with the highest daily average include Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Florida, and Nevada.