Staff Reports
Last Call — A prime-time read of what’s going down in Florida politics.
First Shot
A COVID-19 data discrepancy between the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been sorted out, according to FDOH.
Dueling data sets published Monday showed different scenarios about the state of COVID-19 in Florida over the weekend. CDC data shows COVID-19 cases skyrocketing in the Sunshine State over the weekend, while FDOH data shows a slight decline.
Dr. Shamarial Roberson, Deputy Secretary for Health for the FDOH, said the discrepancy was a “mistake” by CDC because of the way FDOH reports weekend COVID-19 cases to the CDC. FDOH automatically uploads COVID-19 data Monday through Friday, with cumulative data for the weekend reported each Monday. Roberson said the CDC data didn’t have the cumulative weekend data properly sorted out.
Roberson said she expects the CDC will fix its dataset Tuesday.
FDOH made a splash on Twitter Monday evening when they used the public forum to call out the data discrepancy and said the CDC combined multiple days of data into one day of data.
But the CDC’s version of events had already been publicized by Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried at her daily COVID-19 briefing Monday.
Fried, a Democrat running for Governor in 2022, speaking to reporters about the data discrepancy Tuesday, blamed the discrepancy on Gov. Ron DeSantis, who decided to stop publishing daily COVID-19 data in early June.
“I fall back on the fact that this is a failure of leadership from the executive branch and from the Governor’s Office in a void of leadership. If you just did what was right from the get-go, there wouldn’t be this type of confusion,” Fried said.
The data is off by more than 10,000 COVID-19 cases on one of the days.
The state says there were 21,500 new cases Friday, Aug. 6; 19,567 new cases Saturday, Aug. 7; and 15,319 new cases Sunday, Aug. 8.
According to the CDC’s website, there were 23,903 new cases in Florida on Friday, 28,316 news cases Saturday and 28,317 new cases Sunday.
Evening Reads
“Joe Biden won over Mitch McConnell. Now he needs AOC.” via Russell Berman of The Atlantic
“Why Andrew Cuomo resigned and Donald Trump didn’t” via Andrew Prokop of Vox
“There’s a silver lining in the extremely bleak new climate report” via Nitish Pahwa of Slate
“After shunning free beer and savings bonds, the fourth covid-19 wave is convincing holdouts to finally get vaccinated” via Chris Wilson of TIME
“They worry the Johnson & Johnson shot isn’t enough. A new study offers answers — and questions.” via Lateshia Beachum, Lindsey Bever and Marisa Iati of The Washington Post
“FL school openings come with continued mask debates, struggles over autonomy; some districts pushing back, going to court” via Danielle J. Brown of the Florida Phoenix
“How the rise of white identity politics explains the fight over critical race theory” via Michael Tesler of FiveThirtyEight
“From Britney Spears to political rivals, Joel Greenberg searched scores of names on confidential database” via Martin E. Comas and Jason Garcia of the Orlando Sentinel
“With COVID-19 cases rising in Florida, what numbers can you trust?” via Cindy Krischer Goodman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel
“Piecing together the history of Stasi spying” via Annalisa Quinn of The New York Times
“Reckoning with race in Hollywood: how the events of 2020 created conversations on set and off” via Shar Jossell of Variety
Quote of the Day
“The Governor may have been a bully on the playground growing up, he may be able to bully the Legislature, but the superintendent and the school board members are not going to be bullied,” Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, on threats to dock school board members’ pay.
Bill Day’s Latest
Breakthrough Insights
One comment
Tom
August 10, 2021 at 9:41 pm
Nikki Fraud needs to get her mouth shut.
She is a liar and embarrassment. She is dishonest as she cannot justify her financial earnings nor can she report them. She is the reason why CDC provided faulty numbers. Media was lied to. Fraud said in her words, she’s cooperating with Biden WH. She’s as
low as the street curb. FP is way to open with her. She’s used you. Cuomo resigned. Democrat women how’s your party now. Cuomo and his $5 million Covid book deal Is pathetic and his fondling is an predator like. He lost 15,000 seniors to Covid, unlike Gov Ron. Next is Cali Gov Newsom, recall of lockdown Gov, he will likely lose. Don’t forget Virginia’s Northam. The winner is America’s Governor, Florida’s great Governor DeSantis. What a family, Camelot in Tallahassee.. He stands on wings of angels compared to this other garbage. DeSantis will win with landslide. Cry eye Dems! Read it and weep.
Comments are closed.