DeSantis health officials release numbers on Palm Beach County COVID deaths after lawsuit
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
It took more than two years and a lawsuit, but Florida health officials are once again publicly reporting Palm Beach County's COVID-19 death toll, revealing a fatality count in the thousands.
The Florida Department of Health stopped reporting county-by-county COVID fatalities in mid-2021 because the state was “returning to normal,” an aide to Gov. Ron DeSantis said at the time. But Palm Beach County logged 3,549 more victims since then, the majority of all deaths in the county.
What's more, the majority of statewide COVID deaths have occurred since then too.
The state Health Department published the latest data without public announcement in late October at FLHealthCHARTS.gov. It shows weekly, monthly and yearly COVID case counts, deaths and vaccinations in each county by age group, race, ethnicity or sex.
What made Florida reveal detailed COVID death data after two years?
The state had to release the statistics after settling a lawsuit last month with former state Rep. Carlos Guillermos Smith, a Democrat from Orange County. Smith sued in 2021, claiming state officials violated Florida public records law when he asked them for daily COVID data and they claimed to have none. The USA TODAY Network, which owns The Palm Beach Post and other Florida newspapers, joined that lawsuit.
Previously: Florida Department of Health agrees to settlement, to provide more detailed COVID-19 data
The Health Department switched from daily to weekly reports on June 4, 2021, removing information showing data for each of Florida’s 67 counties such as cases, hospitalizations, deaths or vaccinations for people in each age group, race or ethnicity along with more numbers such as the median age each day for those infected or how many cases were found in nursing homes.
What is Palm Beach County's COVID death toll?
The data the department uploaded last month shows 6,432 COVID fatalities in Palm Beach County as of Oct. 20. About 55% of those deaths happened after state health officials switched to less-detailed weekly reporting.
The state Health Department includes people who died within 30 days of testing positive or whose death certificate lists COVID as an immediate, underlying or significant contributing factor to the death. DeSantis has yet to make good on a promise he made in January 2022 when he said his administration would publish statistics differentiating between COVID-positive Floridians who died from the disease and those who died for another main reason.
While 82% of Palm Beach County’s victims were elderly, the detailed data reveals an explosion of deaths in 2021 among residents younger than 65.
Also: USA TODAY Network, other Florida news organizations join COVID-19 public records lawsuit
Just 17% of Palm Beach County COVID victims from Jan. 1 to June 3, 2021, were not seniors. But from June 4 through the end of the year, that ratio jumped to 33% as Florida logged more new infections and deaths than any other state in the nation.
When the state Health Department switched to weekly reporting that lacked fatalities among age groups in each county, DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw justified the decision by telling the News Serivce of Florida that “COVID-19 cases have significantly decreased over the past year ... and our state is returning to normal, with vaccines widely available.”
The CHARTS data also show Palm Beach County has fared better than the majority of Florida’s 67 counties when it comes to COVID deaths.
How Palm Beach County's COVID death toll compares to the rest of Florida
Palm Beach County tied Clay County — southwest of Jacksonville — for the 29th lowest death rate in 2022, with 100 COVID deaths for every 100,000 residents, according to a Palm Beach Post comparison of fatalities to the latest population estimates from the University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research.
Palm Beach County is No. 33 in 2023 so far, with 36 deaths per 100,000 residents.
Florida logged 91,922 deaths as of Oct. 20, the CHARTS data shows. State health officials recorded 60% of those fatalities after June 4, 2021.
Here is how many COVID deaths state health officials have logged among Palm Beach County residents for each year:
2020: 1,969
2021: 2,394
2022: 1,520
2023: 549, as of Oct. 20
About 51% of Palm Beach County's COVID victims were boys and men. And about 60% were white, larger than the estimated 52% of the county population that racial group comprises.
How do I find Florida's detailed COVID death data?
Go to https://www.flhealthcharts.gov/ChartsDashboards/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=COVID19.Dataviewer&cid=9956.
From there, select whichever age, gender, racial or ethnic groups for whom you want to see death statistics. The "Time interval" dropdown can be changed from yearly, to monthly or weekly.
Click the green Microsoft Excel icon in the upper right corner of the results to download them as a spreadsheet file.
Chris Persaud is the data reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at cpersaud@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County COVID-19 death numbers released after lawsuit
