We’ve been busy this Fourth-of-July weekend.
We hope everyone stayed safe and preferably at home, but at a minimum adhering to guidelines about wearing masks and social distancing in public.
We know that laws and ordinances are changing quickly, and we’re trying to keep up by providing the most up-to-date list of local, county and state requirements for masks. Check out our blog for the most recent info about those policies, and feel free to leave comments to update that information as more information becomes available (but be sure to cite your info).
Now to the new stuff.
Dashboard and Website Updates:
- #COVIDStorm map and web page launch
- Demographics data on the dashboard
- Outreach to DOH about missing/inconsistent data
The storms in the Gulf and Atlantic oceans motivated us to get the basic frames of our #COVIDStorm map and dedicated web page up today around noon. A lot is still in development, so be patient with us while we aggregate and verify data to add to this critical resource.
With Rebekah (a published hurricane scientist) at the helm of this project, we want to be a leader in providing Hurricane-COVID-19 information, data, and analysis, so we’re doing a lot of modeling behind the scenes. This would have been Rebekah’s job at the Florida Department of Health (DOH) had she not been fired for refusing to manipulate data during a public health crisis.
We added a demographics page to the dashboard today, too. We want to provide more meaningful statistics about testing, cases and deaths, which is why we’ve requested more information from the Florida Department of Health regarding a number of data issues. We plan on publishing our letters and communication to and with DOH shortly, assuming they respond.
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New website for COVID-19 Victims
We launched a new sister site today, FloridaCovidVictims.com.
This is where we will now post about known victims of COVID-19 in Florida. Rebekah works on this site and personally writes each memorial. So far we have identified and named more than 1,800 of the 3,832 persons who have died. That means more 2,000 victims remain nameless, and we’d like your help fixing that.
If you have information about someone who died from COVID-19, or you would like to contribute a photo or obituary link for a loved one, please email us at: Contact@FloridaCovidVictims.com.
We are also working to complete the datasets to release to the public to use for analysis and research regarding those who have died. There are hundreds of deaths missing from DOH’s data that were either previously listed by DOH, or are included in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement reports of cases.
Before we release the names of those persons who have been removed from the case line records, we want to ensure their cases have not been reassigned to other counties, reclassified as another cause of death, or otherwise moved or transferred.
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Fundraising goals and plans
We also recently adjusted our fundraising goal.
We went through and calculated how much hardware, software and maintenance we’ll need through the next 6-18 months, how much time we’ll need to dedicate to that work, and the salary of the big boss (Rebekah Jones– who founded this venture) while she works on this project and searches for a permanent position post-COVID-19.
This more-exact calculation allowed us to drop our original fundraising goal by 40%. Our overall goal now is $300,000, and we’re still fundraising through GoFundMe, PayPal.com, and snail-mail donations (we prefer the snail-mail).
There is a small fee with both GoFundMe (2.9% on all transactions) and PayPal (3.05% if using credit/debit card, 0% if using PayPal funds), but ZERO fees if you send a check!
If sending a check, please address to:
Rebekah Jones
PO Box 13747
Tallahassee, FL 32317
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Planned projects in the works
Once a tropical storm threatens our coast, we plan on launching public surveys to monitor and map a number of critical resources, including:
- Hotel surveillance
- Public reporting of available rooms, coronavirus rules/policies/protections in place, and more. Hotels are encouraged to participate.
- Shelter surveillance
- State policies on coronavirus per shelter, as well as shelter capacity and availability.
- Special needs shelters, precautions in place, and public reporting of facility standards.
Think of Florida’s price-gouging reporting tool, but imagine that you could submit information about hotels that are fully booked or not following local ordinances regarding masks and social distancing, or the CDC guidelines, or shelters that are over-crowded and under-staffed. That’s what we’re going for. Even during the storm, providing information, whether photos or information about non-compliance by the staff or occupants, it’s all information that’s useful to your community.
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That’s all for now, folks. Stay tuned as we ramp up our COVID-hurricane resources and work.