Meanwhile, Florida officials last month stopped releasing the list of coronavirus deaths being compiled by the state’s medical examiners, which had at times shown a higher death toll than the total being published by the state. State officials said that list needed to be reviewed as a result of the discrepancy.

A spokesman for the state Health Department said the medical examiners had a different method for reporting deaths and that it was untrue “that deaths have been hidden.”

“The government has one mission; academics and scholars have a very different mission,” Dr. Dean Hart, an expert on viral transmission and former Columbia University professor who has run for the New York State Assembly as a Democrat, told NBC News.

“As a scientist, I’m looking for the truth, the heck with who it hurts politically,” he added.