Commotion: Accusations Of Political Motivation Behind Florida COVID Miscount
The Claim
The CDC recently attempted to defame Florida’s Republican governor by combining multiple days of positive coronavirus cases into one day.
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Emerging story
On August 10th, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a count of positive coronavirus cases for the State of Florida the preceding Sunday, stating that the number was 28,317. Shortly after this figure began to be reported, Florida’s Department of Health Twitter account began retweeting tweets sharing this news and stating that the CDC had incorrectly combined multiple days of data into one.
Soon, a number of Twitter users began to speculate or even claim that the CDC had intended to combine the data in a partisan attempt to make the Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, look bad. These tweets have become popular, gaining hundreds or even thousands of interactions.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation concludes that the CDC did not deliberately combine the numbers to make Governor Ron DeSantis or any other politician look bad. This is not the first instance of the CDC mistakenly releasing incorrect data, and in the past, the political leanings of the head of the CDC did not correlate with an attempt to make a politician look bad.
In May 2020, the CDC compromised its metrics by conflating viral and antibody tests, making the positive coronavirus numbers seem higher than they were. However, at this point in time, the CDC Director was Robert Redfield, who had received criticism for being a pro-Trump “MAGA whisperer.” This highlights that the CDC was not led by someone who was attempting to intentionally defame a Republican president by miscalculating data. Instead, the mistake appears to have resulted regardless of political affiliation.
Doctor Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist at the University of South Florida who is currently maintaining a coronavirus tracking effort, told a local news organization what he believed to be the underlying cause of the error in data reporting. “What I’m guessing happened is that the CDC took those numbers and instead of dividing by three, they divided by only two,” he said. “And so obviously that ends up with a much higher daily total.” He went on to say, “I think it’s pretty easily explained. I hear a lot of people saying, well, who do we trust, the CDC or the Florida Department of Health? That is not the issue.”
The CDC itself confirmed to Fox News that it had mistakenly divided three days of cases into two days, leading to the incorrect figure. It also stated that it was working with the Florida Department of Health to correct the misinformation. The final figures are still alarmingly high and do not need to be exaggerated to show a desperate situation. The final case count for August 8 was 19,584. This month, Florida has the highest coronavirus rate in the entire U.S.
