48 FL Counties In Red Zone: White House Coronavirus Task Force

FLORIDA — After months of being hidden from public view, weekly reports sent to Florida by the White House coronavirus response team have a new, publicly accessible home.

Cyrus Shahpar, COVID-19 data director for the Biden administration, announced the move in a tweet Wednesday afternoon.

“First post: We are now sharing previously hidden weekly COVID-19 state profile reports with the public,” Shahpar tweeted.

The release of the weekly state reports marks a stark contrast between the response of the current administration and its predecessor.

For the most part, the Trump administration had kept the weekly reports under wraps, sharing them with state governors but not with the general public. While some governors would share the reports at a state level, not all did.

The reports often contained key county-level data as well as federal recommendations by health experts that, if enacted, could potentially curb the spread of coronavirus.

The reason for keeping them hidden, according to a report by the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity, was to encourage states to lead their own response to the pandemic.

Dr. Deborah Birx, a leader of the White House task force under former President Donald Trump, said on a private call last summer that the reports were “critical to really ensure we’re all looking at the same data and all looking at the same mitigation efforts,” according to a separate report by the Center for Public Integrity.

However, just before Christmas, the coronavirus task force under Trump stopped its proactive approach to sending out the reports. Instead, the task force said it would only distribute reports if states requested them.

Even before this, though, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration stopped releasing Florida’s report after the Center for Public Integrity obtained a copy of the Dec. 6 report that suggested the Sunshine State adopt stricter restrictions during the holiday season, Salon reported.

"Florida has seen stability in new cases, an increase in test positivity, and increasing hospitalizations and deaths, indicating unrelenting community spread and inadequate mitigation," according to the Dec. 6 report.

Two Florida newspapers — the Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun Sentinel — sued the governor on Dec. 11 for not releasing the reports to journalists and others who requested it. They accused him of violating the Public Records Act, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Ultimately, the state settled with the newspapers, agreeing to release future reports within two business days. They also paid $7,500 in attorney fees.

Here’s what we learned in the first Florida report, dated Jan. 24:

• The number of new cases is down 19 percent from the previous week with 77,905 new cases (363 per 100,000 residents.)
• The COVID-19 death rate increased 7 percent from the previous week with 1,212 deaths (5.6 per 100,000 residents.)
• The number of hospital admissions decreased by 7 percent week over week.
• The number of hospitals with staff shortages has increased by 12 percent across the state.

Additionally, in Florida, 48 counties were identified as being in the “red zone” based on the number of new cases and test positivity over the past week.

The top 12 counties on this list include:

• Miami-Dade
• Broward
• Orange
• Hillsborough
• Palm Beach
• Duval
• Polk
• Volusia
• Escambia
• Osceola
• Pasco
• Marion

The top 12 metro areas on this list include:

• Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach
• Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater
• Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford
• Jacksonville
• Lakeland-Winter Haven
• North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton
• Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent
• Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach
• Tallahassee
• Port St. Lucie
• Ocala
• Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin

Here’s how Florida ranks compared to other states in various categories:

• It ranks 16th among the states for test positivity.
• It ranks 23rd among the states for new coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents.
• It ranks 24th among the states for COVID-19 admissions to hospitals.
• It ranks 27th among the states for new deaths per 100,000 residents.

The release of the weekly state reports is the latest move by the Biden administration to bring transparency back to the White House.

Within hours of Joe Biden’s inauguration, press secretary Jen Psaki held her first press briefing at the White House. During it, Psaki — who served as the chief spokeswoman at the State Department under President Barack Obama — told reporters she had a “deep respect for the role of a free and independent press in our democracy.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, also said Americans should expect a “transparent, open and honest” response to the coronavirus under Biden.