Florida’s COVID-19 cases are ticking higher, as is the state’s death toll. As concerns about a fall surge increase, there are new questions about the reliability of the official COVID-19 data reported by the state’s health department.

MELISSA ROSS: You report that Florida is using a misleading measure of positive cases to justify reopening schools and businesses and that we aren't getting a true picture of the spread of the pandemic. That's the opposite of what the House speaker is saying. So what's the real story? What's the data revealing?

But what our reporting has shown is that the state of Florida has consistently chosen to highlight a statistic that shows a lower positivity rate than the statistic that other states tend to use and that other organizations tend to use. And that matters because there have been moments when decision makers have made policy outcomes, whether or not to close restaurants, whether or not to reopen restaurants, house football games, put mask mandates in place because of where this percentage stood.