"DeSantis for the win" --- 19,000 additional unaccounted for deaths. Add that to Florida's "official" 33,246 COVID death total.
Florida is undercounting COVID-19 deaths, per new report
https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs...-undercounting-covid-19-deaths-per-new-report
It probably won't surprise anyone who has had to live through the state's lackadaisical response to the ongoing global pandemic but it bears stating plainly: Florida is undercounting COVID-19 deaths.
That's the conclusion reached by a new report published in the American Journal of Public Health. The paper projected average deaths over six months in 2020 using historical data. It then compared that number to the actual deaths in the same time period. The results were staggering, even in a state with over 33,000 reported deaths.
After accounting for the pandemic, researchers found a 15.5% increase in excess deaths, which works out to over 19,000 additional deaths.
The conclusion reached in the paper's abstract is to the point.
"Total deaths are significantly higher than historical trends in Florida even when accounting for COVID-19–related deaths," researchers wrote. "The impact of COVID-19 on mortality is significantly greater than the official COVID-19 data suggest."
Researchers claim they chose Florida specifically because of its rush to get back to normal. With state officials urging the state to go back to work in spite of the raging pandemic, they figured (correctly) that they would find official numbers well out of whack with reality.
Related Florida House Speaker denies coronavirus death toll; critics call it an attempt to 'downplay the pandemic'
Figuring excess deaths is a common enough thing when researchers are hoping to find the toll of a pandemic. Because novel diseases can be hard to quantify at first, and a widespread illness has knock-on effects that can lead to deaths without sickness, researchers know that aberrations in death rates can point toward a truer picture of its impact.
”Pandemics and disasters often cause what we call ‘indirect’ deaths,” CDC data scientist Lauren Rossen explained in a press release. “An example of this is when someone dies of a heart attack or stroke because they were afraid to go to the hospital, or if changes in people’s circumstances lead to increases in suicide or drug overdose. We don’t know what’s really happening until we look at the bigger picture.”
Related Tampa Bay Times analysis reveals higher COVID-19 death toll in Florida
In Florida, the picture is considerably more grim. While the study does find over 4,000 cases it considers excess deaths from other causes, the bulk of its numbers are believed to be unreported COVID-19 deaths. Given the state's somewhat dodgy history around reporting the numbers - where potential whistleblowers were harassed by police and the state suppressed reports from medical examiners - the underreporting seems much more deliberate.
Just because an unsubstantiated report motivated by smear campaign managers gets some air time and is summarily picked up by all the same left wing media rags doesn't mean you should post it over and over, Futurecurrents.
Researchers claim they chose Florida specifically because of its rush to get back to normal. With state officials urging the state to go back to work in spite of the raging pandemic, they figured (correctly) that they would find official numbers well out of whack with reality.
One thing we agree with. They chose Florida because Florida made their "science" look like the utter rubbish it was. So now they're trying to get back and save face.
Must be tough for people claiming the election was legitimate and to "believe the data" (I do, incidentally) to suddenly say "we can't believe the data" when it comes to numbers they don't like.
