Previously, Florida had reported only the cumulative number of confirmed Covid deaths to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention each day. That can produce a distorted picture of the course of the pandemic because recorded deaths often occurred weeks or even months earlier. The new method is valuable to epidemiologists because it helps construct a more meaningful measure of the course of the virus and its peak.

This is why on Aug. 10, Florida started refreshing its whole time series posted to the CDC site daily, so observers could follow the total number while researchers seeking the accurate epidemiological curve would have that additional information. Nothing was concealed, covered up or put into “artificial decline.” The death totals under each method are the same—only the date attribution differs.

If any deception was afoot, it was by the Miami Herald journalists who touted the change as a bombshell, even though their own paper had reported it 12 days before. An excerpt from the earlier story reads: