Florida's official coronavirus death count, as reported by the state Department of Health, is about 40 short of those reported by state medical examiners, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
The state health department reported 419 COVID-19 deaths Friday, which is about 10% less than the medical examiners' announced number of 461, per the report.
The discrepancy is the health department reports only deaths of residents – "so they are not inadvertently listed twice" around the U.S., per the Times – while the medical examiner reports who died locally, regardless of which state they are an official resident of.
Florida is a very transient state, popular with travel and seasonal traffic from winter-hit areas around the country.
Perhaps adding to the underreporting of deaths in Florida is the fact there might have been a number of respiratory illness deaths not pinned on COVID-19 before testing was widely instituted.
"I can guarantee you that there are pneumonia deaths in Florida that aren't being counted as COVID that are maybe COVID-related," University of California-Irvine professor Andrew Noymer told the Times.
Florida health officials report confirmed cases by residents and non-residents, while deaths reported are only residents, per the report.
This is not the case all around the U.S., though, according to the Times.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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