Two state government websites in Georgia recently stopped posting updates about Covid-19 cases in prisons and long-term care facilities, just as the dangerous delta variant was taking hold.
Data have been disappearing recently in other states, as well.
Florida, for example, now reports Covid cases, deaths and hospitalizations once a week, instead of daily, as before.
Both states, along with the rest of the South, are battling high infection rates.
Public health experts are voicing concern about the pullback of Covid information. Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said the trend is “not good for government and the public” because it gives the appearance that governments are “hiding stuff.”
A month ago, the Georgia agency that runs state prisons stopped giving public updates about the numbers of new Covid cases among inmates and staff members. The Corrections Department, in explaining the decision, cited its successful vaccination rates and “a declining number of Covid-19 cases among staff and inmates.”
Now, a month later, Georgia has among the highest Covid infection rates in the U.S. — along with one of the lowest vaccination rates. But the Corrections Department hasn’t resumed posting case data on its website.
Asked by Kaiser Health News about the Covid situation in prisons, spokesperson Joan Heath said Monday that the department had 308 active cases among inmates.
“We will make a determination whether to begin reposting the daily Covid dashboard over the next few weeks if the current statewide surge is sustained,” Heath said.
Another state website, run by the Public Health Department, no longer links to a listing of the number of Covid cases among residents and staffers of nursing homes and other long-term care residences by facility. The data grid, launched early in the pandemic, gave running totals of long-term care cases and deaths from the virus.
Asked about the lack of online information, public health officials directed a reporter to another agency, the Community Health Department, which said Covid information for nursing homes could be found on a federal health website. But finding and navigating that link can be difficult.
“Residents and families cannot easily find this information,” said Melanie McNeil, the state’s long-term care ombudsman. “It used to be easily accessible.”
Georgia updates overall numbers of Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths five days a week, but it has recently stopped its weekend Covid reporting.
Other states also have cut back their public case reporting, even though the country is being engulfed in a fourth, delta-driven Covid surge.
Florida had issued daily reports about cases, deaths and hospitalizations until the rate of positive test results dropped in June. Even when caseloads soared in July and August, the state stuck with weekly reporting.
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