Published by the Florida Center for Government Accountability
Newsweek: Ron DeSantis Loses Fight to Limit COVID Data
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis officially lost the fight to limit COVID data on Monday and will now be forced to release the data to the public.
Former State Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith first filed the lawsuit in 2021 against the Florida Department of Health and Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, after the department refused to continue to post data on COVID to their public dashboard under orders from DeSantis. Access to Covid-19 data was restricted after the Republican governor decided to open Florida for business in June 2021 just as the Delta variant spread throughout the state. During the information blackout, thousands of Floridians died from COVID-19 in the summer and early fall of 2021.