I removed the graphics for my reply, but wanted to share that I see the same types of discrepancies for Georgia. For example, The official Georgia Department of Health web site notes that 70 new cases were reported on April 30, while the Atlanta newspaper (AJC) reports 618 new cases on that date, citing the GA DHP as the source. How can that be?!?
The DHP notes that regardless of when the new case is reported, they adjust the daily numbers to reflect the date the new case was confirmed, not when it was reported. Thus, there is a 14 day window where the daily numbers are expected to change. My theory is that the AJC is listing the total number of cases reported on a specific date, even if those cases actually were confirmed as new cases across multiple days.
Is that sloppy reporting by the AJC, a bias in reporting to make the numbers look bigger, or just misleading headlines and statistics without proper explanation (which might also be considered sloppy reporting)? Considering the headline was "Georgia verifies 1k new COVID-19 cases in 24 hours", I tend to believe the latter is true. Yes, the total number of cases reported increased from just over 26k on Thursday to 27,134 on Friday. But... that does not mean that there were 1000 new cases found in 24 hours. The report date does NOT equal the confirmed date.
The point of my reply is that the confirmed date should be the date used for ALL trends to see if the number of new daily cases is increasing or decreasing. And, the "final" number of new cases in a day cannot be considered accurate (or complete) until at least 14 days have passed, based on reporting requirements. That true trend should be the one that Florida uses to make decisions on when to move through the phases, (or when to move back, if needed), and also what Disney should consider in deciding when to open and with what restrictions.