Dispute over Statistics in Florida regarding Covid-19 Related Deaths

I've written about Pennsylvania's ongoing dispute between its Department of Health and some County Coroners regarding responsibilities for reporting Covid-19 related deaths and how to better assure accuracy of data.   It seems possible to me that part of the controversy in Pennsylvania may reflect the fact that the County Coroners are elected officials, and may not identify with the political views of the Governor.  Some Republicans vs. Democrat.  In contrast, disputes between Florida's 25 medical examiner district offices and the state's Department of Health are emerging news. 

I don't follow politics in Florida closely enough to know whether party-politics are involved, but there does appear to be concern from the regional officials that the State is inclined to discount Covid-19 related deaths in Florida, perhaps in an attempt to protect tourism into the state.  Should a "tourist" that dies in Florida be counted as a death in Florida?  From Florida Today, this opening account of one tourist death:

When a 66-year-old man was found dying on an Amtrak train passing through Okeechobee County on April 5, there was nothing to indicate that he had COVID-19. It was the local medical examiner's office that pieced it together. 

 

The examiner discovered the man had recently arrived with a fever at New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport from the United Kingdom. The Centers for Disease Control stopped him from boarding a flight to Florida and sent him to a local hospital for a coronavirus test. Released before the results came back, he got on a southbound train, went into cardiac arrest while traversing the Sunshine State, and was pronounced dead at a Florida hospital.

 

The district medical examiner collected the facts, swabbed the body, confirmed coronavirus and entered the man's death into the Medical Examiners Commission record as a COVID-19 fatality on April 13. . . . 

 

But since at least April 20, the Florida Department of Health has blocked the Medical Examiners Commission from releasing their own detailed spreadsheet of the COVID-19 dead. On Wednesday, the state released the medical examiners' spreadsheet but redacted the narratives and cause of death entries. 

 

For more, read "What's In the Censored Florida Medical Examiners Database of COVID-19 Deaths?" by reporters Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon and Jim Waymer.