Florida scientist says she was fired for refusing to change Covid-19 data 'to support reopen plan'
The scientist in charge of Florida’s Covid-19 database was fired on the same day as the state opened up for business.
As sunbathers returned to beaches, and restaurants, movie theaters, gyms and hair salons in almost every county were permitted to open their doors on Monday, the Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration fired Dr Rebekah Jones from the Florida department of health.
Jones, the architect and manager of the online dashboard held up by the White House in April as a model of transparency and integrity, said she was sidelined after protesting orders to censor some of the information it contained. And on Tuesday she claimed she was fired for refusing to “manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen”.
A spokesperson for DeSantis, meanwhile, denied the allegation, and insisted that Jones was let go for disruptive behaviour and insubordination.
Jones’s dismissal has upset scientific researchers in Florida who say that accurate and impartial statistics are crucial to their work. Democrats believe the move was politically driven.
“Allegations that Florida’s government may have tried to manipulate or alter data to make reopening appear safer is outrageous,” Terrie Rizzo, the chair of the Florida Democratic party, told the Guardian in a statement.
“These kinds of actions are dangerous and, frankly, should be criminal. An independent investigation is needed immediately. Meanwhile, city and state officials across Florida should closely monitor the situation to protect the public’s health.”
Jeremy Konyndyk, senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, who led the Obama administration’s fight against the Ebola virus in West Africa, said in a tweet: “This raises some questions about those encouragingly low numbers in Florida recently.”
The controversy has parallels in Georgia, where the office of another Republican governor, Brian Kemp, was forced to apologise for presenting figures in that state’s public health database that falsely showed a downward trend in coronavirus cases.
one of the links, too many out there
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ta-reopen-plan