BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) — A report on FloridaPolitics.com generating national attention this morning (link below) reveals that Florida Surgeon General Scott Rivkees — also the State’s Secretary of the Department of Health — is telling hospitals to stop reporting how many people are in ICU beds. He wants hospitals to only report the patients in ICU beds who are receiving an “intensive level of care.”
The difference, which may initially seem like splitting hairs until you analyze the sentence, could make it appear that more ICU beds are available than truly are. A patient may be in an ICU bed and rapidly failing, but not yet receiving “intensive” treatment until things go from bad to worse. That bed isn’t available even though the patient is lying in it may not be receiving an extreme level of care.
Rivkee’s change in position comes as Rebekah Jones started releasing real-time ICU bed availability based on a data stream that is not reported to the public by the State of Florida.
Jones was Florida’s lead data scientist until she was fired.
Gov. Ron DeSantis publicly stated Jones was terminated for not following directions. Jones says the direction was to suppress data. Jones launched her own dashboard with real-time public information.
Here is the insightful FloridaPolitics.com report.
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