Send them up the chain of command or your putting yourself in a position to be scapegoated with the current selective outrage environment, I would not tell them parasites squat.

X2

Your an elected official? Who do you answer to? Pass the buck and have all info released through a county office. Let govt. folks higher up the chain deal with all this.

^^^Yes, this is the answer to your question. Let your County Attorney or County Information Officer handle the FOIL as well as the redactions...

I don't know how it works in Arkansas, but all public records requests should be directed to your legal council. The county attorney should be the one requesting documentation from you. Not the general public.

I would avoid the phone calls from all those reporters.

with your legal council decide what your county can provide , I would think

age
pre existing conditions I know there is a better way to say this something like morbidity factors y/n or a number say the person had 3 factors you put a 3 if none 0
zip code here they break the covid numbers down to zip code

that would be it , any contact tracing info would have been gathered days before when the person started having symptoms and those people should have already been notified to get tested or quarantine.

send that info in an email to your county communications person and let them put it on the county web site or send it out to as a press release. communicating with press for hours a day should not be your job.

If you call the hospital and request information they tell you they can't give that out. I can't see how the press should have more rights.

Lol thanks for the replies. This is a very complicated issue that is regulated by a hodgepodge of state and federal laws and then the mix of death investigation systems. As a coroner in Arkansas my responsibility simply time cause and manner of death. Our state health department is responsible for the management of this pandemic.
I released the information that our county attorney mandated. And the press is unhappy with that. My attorney simply told me that if I wanted to release more against the family's wishes that was ok. I did not.

I think that the families should reserve the right to divulge any additional information. If they are so inclined. You just provide the minimum of what you are legally bound to. No more, no less. The press will just have to be " unhappy" about it They make up enough crap as they go along anyway. So leave it up to their imagination as to what they want to put into their stories.

I see no importance of the public needing personal info about a death in any instance.

They could be notified of pertinent info of the on going hoax of this virus threatening them to settle nerves.

What would personal info of the deceased have to do with any thing for them ?

I see that as an infringement on peoples rights to privacy from the media, as it has no bearing on any needed info
to the virus panic !!

Let the media spend the dollars to force the issue, doubt it will go any where once they realize they have to push for info not really needed for anything !

Ding ding ging gritguy my point exactly.... I absolutely want them to have the data just not the personal identifying Information. I hate to see it end up that way but the press is driving. The one reporter that is pushing this is contacting all 75 counties requesting the same thing. Sadly most of them are releasing everything simply because that is the easy way out. I was told 20 yrs ago " don't (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) off someone who buys ink in 55gal barrels " lol but I guess is like the Aaron tippin said you've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything.. hate being in this position now, sort of likes the family does. I can't win either way. I think I saw a post that gives me an ideal to help both sides of this issue. Thanks for being a sounding board here, it helped me gauge the feel of the public that is not directly involved and experiencing the worst time of their lives.