Florida

We have two questions about the information Florida shares with the CDC regarding COVID.

1. In looking at the CDC’s Cases and Deaths dataset (United States COVID-19 Cases and Deaths by State over Time) we notice that Florida has values reported for new probable deaths (‘pnew_death’) however no value is reported for probable deaths (‘probdeath’). For example, on 2/15, the value for ‘pnew_death’ was 17 while the field for ‘probdeath’ was blank.

Can you confirm that Florida is tracking probable deaths and reporting this information to the CDC? And, if so, can share with us the information you have regarding probable deaths over time?

2. More generally, can you tell us about the different mechanisms of reporting cases and deaths to the federal government (voluntary NNDS, aggregate counts process, and line level reporting from the state health department)? We are particularly interested in the aggregate count process as it appears to be the source of the state-level data published by the federal government regularly.

We noticed that on 8/14, you began to separate Total Cases on your state report into PCR positive and Antigen positive. Wondering if FL follows up Antigen positive cases to confirm them with PCR testing?

It depends. Not routinely. We are following CDC’s guidelines.

if a person receives both a positive antigen test and a positive PCR test, do you shift them from the Antigen positive value to the PCR positive value, in the manner of a probable case moving to a confirmed case? Or do you count them in both Antigen positive and PCR positive values? And would you count them as two people tested or one person tested in your Total Tested category?

We switch them. Do not count them twice.

Any plans to provide a similar Antigen/PCR breakdown and full historical data for your Total Tested value as well?

We are evaluating.

We're interpreting “COVID-19: testing by laboratory” in Florida's reports as the total number of tests conducted, and “Total People Tested” as the total number of individuals tested. Is that correct?

No. The table is person based, so a person is only counted one time per lab they were tested by. Example: if someone is tested 3 times by LAB A and 4 times by LAB B, they are counted 1 time for LAB A and 1 time for LAB B; therefore you cannot use the total numbers in this table to determine the total number of tests conducted.

Are you de-duplicating these figures? If so, how? Also—if the same person gets different test results on different days, are those reported in the daily positives or do you have another system (like e.g. reporting only the first result per individual)?

yes, we are deduplicating most of the data we present. The only graphs where we deduplicate data by day is the positivity graphs on page 2 in our daily report.

We hope to track “testing encounters,” i.e. “the number of unique people who have been tested per day.” E.g. if a person is tested once today and once next week, that counts as two testing encounters. But if the same person has two samples tested in one day, then that only counts as one testing encounter. Florida has something similar on page 2 of the daily reports—is this the same metric? If so it would be great to get the full historical data for this (in an automation-friendly form, like CSV or JSON).

Sounds like the information we present in the “Number of Florida residents tested per day” on page 2. We do share data using data use agreements. We want to make sure our data are used and interpreted correctly, which unfortunately is not always the case. If you are interested in pursuing this, please let us know. That is true for other researchers also. Please send anyone interested in our data our way.

Is FL pool testing?

At this time, the Department is not conducting pool testing. When pooled tests are reported, the Department ensures all duplicate tests are removed and not included in the total number of individuals tested.

Is FL antigen testing?

Positive antigen test results in patients are considered positive cases and incorporated into total case counts. Please see https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-authorizes-first-antigen-test-help-rapid-detection-virus-causes for more information.

Could you clarify what date is used to determine the Deaths by Day graph that is shown on the dashboard?

Deaths by Date is reported using the date the individual died.

could you explain what "positive residents transferred" means in the report?

"Residents who tested positive and were transferred to a medical facility for additional care."