Just two days after a Florida sheriff announced the state had abruptly cut him off from data about local coronavirus cases, state health authorities have reversed course.
Just two days after a Florida sheriff announced the state had abruptly cut him off from data about local cases of coronavirus infections, state health authorities have reversed course, agreeing on Thursday morning to continue providing the information.
“As this pandemic is growing, why are we giving less information?” Chitwood wondered. “That’s not healthy.” He told Yahoo News that he was unaware of any other Florida sheriff who was providing similar coronavirus updates. “When there’s trouble getting the information, it’s because the information is troubling,” Chitwood told a local outlet on Wednesday, recalling a lesson he’d learned when he began as a Philadelphia police officer at the devastating height of crack cocaine’s grip on American cities during the late 1980s.
While he had no intention of making public the addresses of potentially sickened Floridians, Chitwood did want Volusia County residents to know if they were living in a potential mini hot spot. His post provided the first of what would be dozens of informal but data-informed public health reports, detailing where cases were suspected — four in Daytona County, three in Port Orange and so on—while also explaining that a suspected case was not necessarily a positive one.
Jewell explained to Yahoo News that the address-specific information was especially helpful to first responders, including police officers, firefighters and emergency medical personnel. Shortages of personal protective equipment, Jewell went on to say, meant that it was critical for those first responders to be aware that they were entering a household where someone might be infected with a highly contagious disease.
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