Health officials in Florida accused the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) of inflating COVID statistics this week, saying the organization is posting “incorrect information” regarding the pandemic in the Sunshine State.
“The daily case counts for Florida currently posted on the CDC COVID Tracker are incorrect,” posted the group on Twitter.
“It appears the CDC divided by two instead of three,” said Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist at the University of South Florida.
“The CDC had to amend its figures for Sunday, August 8, after the Florida Department of Health contested its figures, which listed 28,317 new COVID cases that day,” writes Newsweek. “The Florida Department of Health noticed a discrepancy in its COVID figures for August 8 and those being reported by the media.”
"They combined MULTIPLE days into one. We anticipate CDC will correct the record," stated the Florida Health Department.
"Consequently, each Monday or Tuesday, there will be two or three days of data reported at a time," it said. "When data is published, it is attributed evenly to the previous days."
“The CDC told the media on Tuesday it was working with Florida officials to correct the inaccuracies. It adjusted the number on its website to 19,584, although this was still higher than the health department's figure of 15,319,” adds Newsweek.
Read the full report here.
