The Pennsylvania Division of Well being is dragging its ft on releasing up-to-date, statewide COVID-19 demise knowledge by ZIP code regardless of reaching a courtroom settlement with LNP | LancasterOnline conceding that combination knowledge on the deaths falls underneath the state’s open information regulation.
Citing the necessity for a “authorized assessment,” the division requested a 30-day extension to offer the latest demise figures in response to a Proper-to-Know request LNP | LancasterOnline filed on September 14.
“The division is working to compile the knowledge to satisfy the newest Proper-to-Know request and supply that knowledge,” stated Barry Ciccocioppo, the communications director for the Division of Well being.
The extension discover is the newest delay in a legal saga stretching again to final fall when the division denied LNP’s request for the COVID-19 demise knowledge for ZIP codes in Lancaster County.
The newspaper appealed the division’s denial to the state’s Workplace of Open Information (OOR), which acts as an preliminary arbiter of disputes over public information requests. The OOR sided with LNP | LancasterOnline and ordered the division to ship the info to the newspaper.
The division appealed the OOR’s resolution to the Commonwealth Court docket in December. Each side within the case filed briefs to the courtroom earlier than reaching an settlement slightly below two weeks in the past to offer LNP | LancasterOnline with the info it initially requested.
The Division of Well being’s settlement with LNP | LancasterOnline adopted an August ruling from the Commonwealth Court docket ordering the state to show over aggregated knowledge regarding sufferers taking part in Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program to Highlight PA, a Harrisburg-based nonprofit newsroom.
After LNP | LancasterOnline obtained the info, which listed COVID-19 deaths in Lancaster County from the beginning of the pandemic to September 2021, a reporter filed a request to the division to offer the info for the complete state’s zip codes, and for it to be present as of when the request was crammed.
“You’re hereby notified that, as a result of a authorized assessment of the information probably conscious of your request is required, the Division would require as much as a further 30 days … wherein to offer a closing response to your request,” an Open Information Officer with the division wrote to the reporter on Wednesday.
That preliminary response, based on the lawyer who represented LNP | LancasterOnline within the information case, is “enjoying video games.”
“Now, clearly, the reporter’s request is for a unique time interval. However it’s for a similar knowledge,” stated Terry Mutchler, a public information lawyer and former first govt director of the Workplace of Open Information. “It is a totally different model of holding information hostage.”
What the info says
In its effort to disclaim LNP | LancasterOnline’s request in 2021, the Division of Well being cited the danger that COVID-19 demise figures may very well be used to establish the individuals who had died in the event that they had been supplied at a smaller geographic degree.
LNP | LancasterOnline argued in its attraction to the OOR, and later in courtroom, that as a result of the demise counts could be aggregated by zip code, they’d not present that functionality.
Within the knowledge supplied to LNP | LancasterOnline through the settlement, the state knowledge supplies demise counts for all county ZIP codes besides these the place lower than 5 folks died of COVID-19, presumably as a result of identical privateness considerations the division initially cited.
Nonetheless, the ZIP code-level knowledge launched to the newspaper supplies essentially the most granular portrait of which sections of the county misplaced essentially the most residents to COVID-19 over the primary 18 months of the pandemic.
In response to the info, the ZIP codes encompassing Lancaster metropolis and its northern suburbs – together with Manheim Township, Lititz and Ephrata, amongst others – misplaced essentially the most residents to COVID-19 within the interval coated. ZIP code 17602, which incorporates a number of the metropolis, West Lampeter and East Lampeter townships, misplaced 161 residents, essentially the most within the county.
Adjusted for inhabitants, nevertheless, the info supplies a notably totally different portrait of resident deaths. Whereas Lancaster metropolis and the northern suburbs nonetheless ranked among the many county’s hardest-hit areas, two of Lancaster’s rural zip codes – 17578, which incorporates Reamstown and Schoeneck, and 17509, which incorporates Ninepoints – had essentially the most COVID-19 deaths per 1,000 residents within the county.
The same dataset to the one supplied by the state was accessible on a web site maintained by the Lancaster County authorities, however commissioners removed it in March. That website, utilizing knowledge from the county coroner’s workplace, displayed COVID-19 deaths by municipality primarily based on the place folks had died, not the place their houses had been, which means it included non-county residents who died in Lancaster and omitted county residents who died elsewhere.
“We felt that there was no cause to keep away from transparency in offering that info,” stated Stephen Diamantoni, the county coroner. “I feel we’re very open with that info, that knowledge with out compromising privateness of people.”
LNP | LancasterOnline frequently contacts the coroner to obtain updates on how many individuals within the county have died of the virus however doesn’t independently observe deaths by municipality. About 60 folks in Lancaster have died of COVID-19 within the roughly six months for the reason that county took down its dashboard in March, bringing the overall variety of deaths for the reason that begin of the pandemic to 1,711 as of Tuesday.
