An Arizona appellate court sided with the state’s health department in denying an author’s access to confidential medical records relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.
J.D. Ball, who is writing a book about COVID-19, submitted a public records request to the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) in June 2020, asking for the records it relied on when preparing its COVID-19 dashboard—which includes breakdowns of cases by ZIP code, hospital bed usage and availability, and vaccination rates, according to the appellate court’s opinion.
