Florida reverses course on COVID-19 medical examiner data, making information public

https://news.yahoo.com/florida-reverses-course-covid-19-185309967.html

Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon, Florida Today
,USA TODAY•May 21, 2020

Florida is no longer suppressing information in the table of COVID-19 deaths compiled by the state's medical examiners, according to Dr. Stephen J Nelson, the chairman of the state's medical examiners commission.

"It is no longer embargoed. It is once again a public record," Nelson told FLORIDA TODAY on Wednesday.

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FLORIDA TODAY, part of the USA TODAY Network, first reported that cause of death and descriptive entries of the medical examiners database were suppressed from public record in April. The Tampa Bay Times earlier in April reported that the count of the deaths by medical examiners diverged from the Department of Health's death count, at times by as much as 10%.

FLORIDA TODAY published unredacted versions of that database after it had been blocked from public release.

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