OOPS...

DeSantis Finally Admits Florida May Have to Report Daily Local COVID Data

The state had stopped reporting daily case numbers in June as COVID-19 cases dwindled.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finally admitted his state’s current COVID-19 reporting wasn’t serving the public well. At a Thursday press conference in Jacksonville, DeSantis said the state may move back to daily case reporting to offer a more reflective, county-level view of the state’s COVID-19 situation. “It is a huge state, and I think that these waves are not necessarily uniform,” he said, according to the Tampa Bay Times. “With these daily cases, those are reported publicly every day to the CDC so people have access to that. But in terms of breaking it down by county, that may not be a bad idea going forward. I know we used to look at that a lot.” Jacksonville has seen some of the state’s worst surges this summer due to the Delta variant, with some hospitals seeing the most patients since the start of the pandemic last year.

Florida stopped reporting daily case counts in June as cases dwindled, though it continues to report them to the CDC. The federal agency had to issue a correction this week after erroneously reporting case numbers over the weekend.