In Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s records, FDLE counts 36 total COVID-19 related deaths in Leon County .
That’s considerably more than the 20 COVID-19 deaths DOH currently reported.
Of course, FDLE receives ME reports and responds to emergency calls and assigns those to the county of death. With an intensely rural surrounding area, many of Leon county’s deaths aren’t residents of Leon county, meaning they’d be assigned to the county where they live in DOH records, according to DOH.
The 16 additional deaths that FDLE reports can mostly be attributed to DOH assigning the cases to the victim’s county of residence.
However, there are quite a few in the FDLE report from July 22 that don’t appear in the county of residence for the victim, which is also listed in the FDLE data alongisde the place of death. Two deaths include out-of-state residents from Georgia who died in Tallahassee hospitals, and another two do not have a county listed in the FDLE report, but their demographic profiles do not fit anyone who died from surrounding counties at that time.
Missing deaths by county, date of death, and age, race and gender.
Leon County, 4/25/20, 62 year old black female.
Liberty County, 6/1/20, 63 year old black male.
Liberty County, 7/12/20, 60 year old white female.
Gadsden County, 7/11/20, 86 year old black female.
Unknown County, 5/21/20, 80 year old black male
Unknown County, 5/27/20, 87 year old black female
Here’s an example of how the FDLE and DOH data don’t line up through last week:
| County | FDLE Deaths | DOH Deaths |
|---|---|---|
| Alachua | 49 | 16 |
| Baker | 1 | 4 |
| Bay | 4 | 16 |
| Bradford | 1 | 2 |
| Brevard | 64 | 58 |
| Broward | 564 | 554 |
| Calhoun | 0 | 7 |
| Charlotte | 76 | 82 |
| Citrus | 13 | 18 |
| Clay | 34 | 44 |
| Collier | 102 | 120 |
| Columbia | 15 | 6 |
| Dade | 1204 | 1358 |
| Desoto | 4 | 14 |
| Dixie | 0 | 4 |
| Duval | 158 | 112 |
| Escambia | 43 | 67 |
| Flagler | 10 | 8 |
| Franklin | 0 | 1 |
| Gadsden | 2 | 12 |
| Gilchrist | 0 | 0 |
| Glades | 0 | 2 |
| Gulf | 0 | 0 |
| Hamilton | 0 | 2 |
| Hardee | 1 | 5 |
| Hendry | 13 | 32 |
| Hernando | 17 | 17 |
| Highlands | 13 | 16 |
| Hillsborough | 247 | 264 |
| Holmes | 0 | 1 |
| Indian River | 18 | 28 |
| Jackson | 1 | 15 |
| Jefferson | 1 | 5 |
| Lafayette | 0 | 0 |
| Lake | 46 | 37 |
| Lee | 241 | 250 |
| Leon | 36 | 20 |
| Levy | 2 | 2 |
| Liberty | 0 | 2 |
| Madison | 0 | 5 |
| Manatee | 194 | 151 |
| Marion | 23 | 35 |
| Martin | 69 | 55 |
| Monroe | 0 | 7 |
| Nassau | 1 | 7 |
| Okaloosa | 5 | 16 |
| Okeechobee | 4 | 2 |
| Orange | 197 | 143 |
| Osceola | 71 | 45 |
| Palm Beach | 479 | 724 |
| Pasco | 48 | 60 |
| Pinellas | 338 | 344 |
| Polk | 169 | 201 |
| Putnam | 6 | 11 |
| St. Johns | 8 | 17 |
| St. Lucie | 50 | 88 |
| Santa Rosa | 4 | 18 |
| Sarasota | 120 | 111 |
| Seminole | 34 | 51 |
| Sumter | 9 | 21 |
| Suwannee | 6 | 26 |
| Taylor | 0 | 2 |
| Union | 0 | 3 |
| Volusia | 78 | 89 |
| Wakulla | 0 | 1 |
| Walton | 5 | 11 |
| Washington | 3 | 13 |
| Unknown | 0 | 1 |
Part of our tracking project here at Florida COVID Action is to chase down those disparate figures and see which deaths were simply moved to another county, or never included in DOH data at all (and even removed from previous DOH data in some cases)
You can support us in our ongoing efforts as we build out our team and our software systems.
We’ve also been working on building an entirely new experience for the public, which will help solve our issues with load time on our current dashboard system. Here’s a preview of what’s to come:
