What Florida does is take the total number of cases tested and put that in the denominator with positive cases in the numerator to calculate the case positivity rate. The problem with this is the following, explained in a simple example Dr. Salemi explained on his CNN interview:

Imagine 10 people are tested over a month and test negative each with, but in the fourth and final week 5 of them test positive. We obviously know then that 5 out of 10 people tested positive, which means there was a 50% positivity rate and bad news. However, Florida was reported numbers as there were 40 tests taken (each person went once per week for a month) and only 5 of those were positive, so the case positivity rate is now a mere 12.5%.....This is a misleading representation of data because it leads politicians and community leaders to say, "We have lowered cases, let's move on to less restrictions", when in reality, the number of infected people is way higher. These issues may not be intentional or politically driven, but even if the data doesn't fit the politician's narrative, or wishes for full operation instead of 50% capacity in businesses, decision making has to be made by real and accurate data. This is for the sole fact that accurate data makes life saving decisions, regardless if you're a Democrat, Republican, or whatever you believe in.

Florida State University

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