https://apnews.com/636eec189b72d39e8e09325412a283fd
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Louisiana Department of Health is accusing some rural parish officials of misusing lists of patients who tested positive for the coronavirus, violating privacy laws and misinterpreting the data to claim the virus outbreak is less severe than it is.
To combat what it considers improper handling of sensitive data, the health department sent an email to all parish emergency leaders Thursday telling them if they want to keep receiving the reports, they must sign a new data sharing agreement limiting how they can use the data and requiring destruction of earlier records.
But the Advocate reports that in some rural parishes, emergency officials combed through the names, noticed duplicates and shared the lists with other elected officials. Several claimed it was evidence Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration is inflating the number of cases because their list didn’t match up with the official tally of cases.
“It’s funny to me that if they’re not misrepresenting then why did they all of the sudden quit sending out these reports?” said Shawn Beard, the Red River Parish police jury president.
“They want to shut us up,” he said.
LaSalle Parish Sheriff Scott Franklin, speaking to conservative talk radio show host Moon Griffon, said “it burns me up” when he sees media outlets reporting new cases, because he believes the data includes duplicates. He said he won’t sign the new data sharing agreement, which he dubbed a “gag order.”