Florida Authorities Mysteriously Tight-Lipped About Number of Coronavirus Cases

The global coronavirus pandemic may very well be in its last throes of chaos, having spread from Wuhan, China out to all the far corners of the planet.

In the United States, the illness predictably ravaged New York City first, on account of The Big Apple’s international connections and unreal population density.  Now, some months later, the virus is surging in states far from Gotham such as Texas and Florida, where officials had begun to reopen the economy, believing that they had dodged a bullet.

The case-counts are particularly worrisome in Florida, which is known for the their tourism and travel, and who will be playing host to a consolidated version of several sports leagues in Orlando in the coming weeks.

The real issue is that Florida officials haven’t been all that forthcoming with their statistics.

Under pressure last week as COVID-19 hospitalizations soared in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office said the state would start reporting daily hospitalization data for all 67 counties.

DeSantis on Tuesday, however, refused to address the fact that the state has yet to make good on its promise when asked by a Miami Herald reporter.

“Obviously not everything is presented in this report but just an unbelievable amount of data is available,” DeSantis said at an indoor press conference held at Florida’s 12th COVID-only nursing facility near Miami International Airport.

Even under direct questioning, the state deferred.

When asked by the Miami Herald earlier this week, the governor’s office said it still planned to publicly report the data, but would not specify a timeline. Public health officials and experts have told the Herald that the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration possesses the data, but the agency has not responded to requests to provide it.

State health department officials have told researchers that the department does not track current hospitalizations.