A PEOPLE’S DASHBOARD FOR FLORIDA DURING COVID-19

The new Florida COVID Community Action website brings public health data and resources from across
the state into an interactive website that helps people search, learn and get help during the COVID-19
Crisis.

Using a community-mapping approach, where data is scaled to the local level and community members
can submit data instantly online, the community action dashboard does more than just dump data onto
viewers’ lap.

Once you reach the website, you will see the most up-to-date statistics, in proper context, with a host of
other data Florida leaders have previously tried to hide or restrict from public view. You can search your
county for the latest data, find testing locations and hours near your home, and submit information
about resources in your community.

If you need to find a food bank, a Red Cross office, an anti-body drive-thru or private testing center, or if
you just want to let people know about community events to help those struggling during this time, you
need only access one site.

The purpose of this new and improved resource is to help the public understand this pandemic on a
more detailed level, and get help quickly if they need it.

Our website will always be under construction as we continue to build out our capabilities and add user
content to our database, and we look forward to hearing from the community about what they would
like to see on their dashboard.

How our map is different:

We count everyone who has had a confirmed-positive COVID-19 lab result, including antibody testing.
Any cumulative count of positive people in Florida should include any person who has a confirmed-
positive lab result, whether tested while symptomatic or not. This helps us better track the disease
burden on healthcare systems and its spread in the community.

We show the number of positive people, hospitalizations, and deaths for everyone tested in Florida,
regardless of their legal address. DOH excludes non-residents from its demographic data, zip code data,
death data, and case data over time.

We apply the CDC’s guidance on counting “recovered” cases to show by-county estimates of the
number of recovered people. This calculation includes all cases diagnosed more than six weeks ago
where no death, hospitalization or ER admission is on file.

We show hospital data – including active bed counts, capacity, and ICU/isolation availability, updated
hourly by the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) through a public data feed.

We also break down deaths and hospitalizations by age group for both residents and non-residents.
We provide a report card for each county to measure readiness to enter the next phase of reopening
based on the criteria DOH and the State outlined in late April.

We provide data about the impacts of COVID-19, including lives lost, economic, and social factors by
region and county.

We provide testing site locations and data, including hours of operation, test type, and contact
information for every testing facility in the state. We have a separate testing application tool, as well,
which can be used to search for facilities and print directions.

We provide information about community resources, including the locations, contact information and
hours for Red Cross facilities, food banks, USDA Meals for Kids locations, and more.

We show city-level case data, made available through daily PDF reports but never added to the DOH
dashboard, so communities can better-understand their risk.

We calculate positivity based on the number of people tested, not the number of new cases divided by
the total numbers of tests processed across all labs each day, which includes duplicates and re-tests
(though we also provide this information for context).

We put the data in context, clearly stating each variable’s limitations and caveats, for all the data on the
site, including DOH’s data.

We provide public data feeds that aren’t dependent on the now-unreliable DOH dashboard, and are
pulled directly from the PDF reports issued by DOH each morning. Anyone can download the raw data
and analyze it, regardless of whether or not the dashboard is crashing, and we provide the daily data for
all PDFS and data tables published by DOH each day on our Open Data site.

Most importantly, we ask the community for input. If there’s data the public wants to see, and we have
a way of accurately counting or finding that data, we will do our best to do so. If people want to add
event information or resources the public can access for testing or for help, they can add it to our map
by filling out a short, anonymous survey.

What we still can’t do:

Count probable cases and deaths. Florida does not follow CDC guidance on reporting probable cases,
hospitalizations or deaths by not publishing this data. Without critical information about probable cases,
our understanding of the virus, its burden on our communities and health systems, and its change in
spread over time is very limited.

Measure precise recovery and recovery rates based on case data. The CDC outlined clear guidance for
determining what qualifies someone as being “recovered” two months ago, but DOH never released
that data (even though they have it). Without the data from DOH, we can only estimate the number of
recovered based on the data DOH already makes public, which could be over/under the CDC-outlined
guidance.

Show total cases that include non-residents at the zip code or city level. Both the zip code and city-
level data provided by DOH excludes non-residents and all persons testing positive by antibody testing.
Provide county or zip-code level data for antibody testing. Data currently is submitted based on
county, presumably the county of residence, but that is not clear. It is also unclear if this data includes
residents and non-residents.

Show data about cases in prisons, jails and other detention centers. DOH currently only reports prison
deaths of confirmed-positive inmates. No data is provided regarding case totals, testing, or probably
cases for prisons or jails in the state of Florida.

Background

The COVID-19 Dashboard I built while serving as GIS Manager for the Florida Department of Health is
undoubtedly on its way out of commission.

The repeated crashing, removing of data and layers, and inability of the state to run basic maintenance
on the system can mean one of two things: a different project is under development to replace the
dashboard, or the system isn’t being maintained because the state has no intention of keeping it
around.

Given the state’s premature push to return to pre-pandemic activity and the repeated attempts by DOH
to make data inaccessible to the public, I’m putting my money on the latter.

After word spread about how I was fired for refusing the manually change data, I spent three weeks
hiding from the press, watching repeated attempts to tarnish my reputation and defame me by the very
people whose unethical behavior landed me here in the first place.

Instead of accepting their failure, I’ve decided to succeed where they couldn’t, and to build something
better for the people of Florida.

I sought to build more than a data delivery system at DOH – I wanted to build a tool that not only
informed, but helped people looking for answers.

When I suggested creating a page where the public could search for resources in their area, whether
food box delivery or elder care, I was told no.

When I suggested adding a page that showed testing centers, and could provide users a quick and
simple way to see hours, locations and requirements of all pop-up, private and public labs, I was told no.

Include non-residents in our cases, deaths, and hospitalization totals? No.

Show hospital and death data by age group? No.

Show current ICU beds available and hospital capacity? No.

Include (but separate) anti-body testing to show how many people we’ve confirmed were COVID-19
positive? No.

Recovered totals? No.

Pneumonia data? No.

Economic data? No.

Demographic data? No.

Prison data? No.

Nursing homes data? No.

No, no and no, over and over again.

While all my ideas weren’t great (see: twitter feed of covid posts), there were many that can and should
be included in an easily accessible and public format.

I’m glad to say I was able to work many of those features into the new community dashboard over two
days, starting from scratch, free from dependency on DOH’s unreliable APIs. The website is live, though
I’m still working on coding from the back-end, aggregating and analyzing data, and finding the most
effective ways of delivering information to the people who need and deserve it.