Florida is now a breeding ground for the virus and the lies DeSantis is spreading is not helping.
56 Florida hospitals hit 100% ICU capacity as GOP’s DeSantis defends refusal to release coronavirus data
At least 56 Florida hospitals in 25 different counties have hit 100% ICU capacity, according to overall hospital
data released by the state. Another 35 only have 10% or less capacity remaining. In all, the state has just 962 out of a total of 5,023 ICU beds available as infections continue to rise.
One expert said contact tracing has become impossible, because here are so many infections now in South Florida.
The Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) released data on overall hospitalizations in the state, but not data related specifically to coronavirus hospitalizations as promised by DeSantis.
DeSantis, a Republican,
defended the refusal to release the data as he was grilled by reporters during a Tuesday news conference.
“All the data that goes into this is all available,” DeSantis claimed.
“I have the spreadsheet from that data, governor,” a reporter shot back. “It is not available.”
“Obviously, not everything is presented in this report but just an unbelievable amount of data is available,” the governor insisted, refusing to respond to follow-up questions.
He claimed that the state had already released plenty of data even as Florida remains an outlier in refusing to release data on coronavirus hospitalizations.
“They have so much raw data on there,” he said. “It’s really incredible . . . People do the charts, and the graphs and everything. That’s all available for folks, and they are able to do it.”
State Sen. José Javier Rodríguez, a Democrat, alleged that the data was not released, because it may not match the data already reported by the state.
The data reported by Florida is unreliable and raises many questions, argued Rebekah Jones, who built Florida’s coronavirus data dashboard before
she alleges being fired for refusing to manipulate data. DeSantis has denied her accusations.