reporting in Florida was fired. Then when she continued to report the statistics on her own she was arrested and her computers were seized, even those that weren’t used for statistical reporting like her child’s tablet. Somebody’s lying.

Here in Georgia we have two kinds of Covid19 deaths, confirmed and probable. I wonder about the criteria for that.

I'm very curious about just how accurate Florida's Covid data is. The author mentioned there are questions about the veracity of Florida's data, then said for his purposes writing, he would assume accuracy. Since his article is all about Florida's Covid record, comparing it to that of other states, that seems ridiculous to me.

It’s one way around making them mandatory, which they can’t do just yet.

How does that work for people who can’t get vaccines for whatever reasons? They can’t go shopping if they have no passport?

Full disclosure: I live part of the year in Florida and part of the year in North Carolina. I am as close to a native Floridian as you can get without having been born there. My parents moved to Floridan when I was an infant and I have watched it explosive growth over my life time.

Florida is like three different states with south Florida being vastly different than central or north Florida. South Florida is densely populated and has had the greatest rate of positive cases and deaths in Florida. North Florida is still relatively less populated with a few major centers of population in Jacksonville, Tallahassee, and the Pensacola area. This map reflects the incidence of cases of COVID are generally greater in the centers of population.

I live in the state capital of Tallahassee which is in north Florida. I personally know eleven people who tested positive for COVID, including one family member. They ranged in age from 29 to 94. The 94 year old had received her first vaccination prior to testing positive and fortunately experienced only mild symptoms. One of the eleven people I know was asymptomatic while all the others experienced symptoms ranging from relatively mild to significant, and some have had long range lingering effects from COVID. All who have had COVID do not brush it off lightly, including the 29 year old family member who caught his at the office where he works.

While the governor has been very loosy goosey about restrictions, some localities, including my own home county passed ordinances requiring face masks in all public locations. My own experience in going to the grocery store or other businesses has been that the overwhelming amount of patrons do wear masks. The only exception I have seen is in home improvement stores where many of the male, white patrons go unmasked. Overall, I can say that non-student residents of my home county have taken mask wearing seriously.

My home county was doing very well until the two universities and one college re-opened last fall. That is when cases significantly rose. The other thing I have noticed is that bars and restaurants seems to be packed, mostly with younger (under 40) patrons. Do I think Florida is doing great? No. I believe that the main reason the statistics for Florida are not worse is that residents and most businesses have taken the virus very seriously and many require their patrons to wear masks upon entry.