Florida's Government May Have Ignored and Withheld Data About Covid-19 Cases (tampabay.com) 269
Slashdot reader DevNull127 writes: Documents filed by Florida's health department now "confirm two of the core aspects" of a whistleblower complaint filed by fired data manager Rebekah Jones, the Miami Herald reported Friday. "Sworn affidavits from Department of Health leaders acknowledge Jones' often-denied claim that she was told to remove data from public access after questions from the Miami Herald."
And they also report a position statement from the department (filed August 17th) acknowledging something even morning damning. While a team of epidemiologists at the Department of Health had developed data for the state's plan to re-open — their findings were never actually incorporated into that plan.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for governor Ron DeSantis still insisted to the Herald that "every action taken by Governor DeSantis was data-driven and deliberate."
From the article: But when the Herald requested the data, data analysis, or data model related to reopening under Florida's open records law, the governor's office responded that there were no responsive records... Secrecy was a policy. Staffers were told not to put anything about the pandemic response into writing, according to four Department of Health employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity... Emails and texts reviewed by the Herald show the governor's office worked in coordination with Department of Health "executive leadership" to micromanage everything about the department's public response to the pandemic, from information requests from the press to specific wording and color choice on the Department of Health website and data dashboard. They slow-walked responses to questions on important data points and public records, initially withholding information and data on deaths and infections at nursing homes, state prisons and schools, forcing media organizations to file or threaten lawsuits. Important information that had previously been made public was redacted from medical examiner accounts of COVID-19 fatalities.
At one point the state mischaracterized the extent of Florida's testing backlog by over 50 percent — skewing the information about how many people were getting sick each day — by excluding data from private labs, a fact that was only disclosed in response to questions from the press. Emails show that amid questions about early community spread, data on Florida's earliest potential cases — which dated back to late December 2019 — were hidden from the public by changing "date range of data that was available on the dashboard."
Department of Health staffers interviewed by the Herald described a "hyper-politicized" communications department that often seemed to be trying to match the narrative coming from Washington.
The Herald's article also "delved into the details of the department's operation," writes DevNull127 : For example, the whistleblower complaint of Rebekah Jones quotes the state's deputy health secretary as telling her pointedly that "I once had a data person who said to me, 'you tell me what you want the numbers to be, and I'll make it happen.'"
Or, as Jones later described that interaction to her mother, "They want me to put misleading data up to support that dumb f***'s plan to reopen. And more people are gonna die because [of] this and that's not what I agreed to."
Last Friday the health department's Office of the Inspector General announced they'd found "reasonable cause" to open an investigation into decisions and actions by Department of Health leadership that could "represent an immediate injury to public health."
Meanwhile, Florida officials confirmed Friday night that their health department "will no longer update its Covid-19 dashboard and will suspend daily case and vaccine reports," according to the New York Times. "Officials will instead post weekly updates, becoming the first U.S. state to move to such an infrequent publishing schedule."
Jones had been using that data to continue running her own online dashboard, and posted Friday in lieu of data that the dashboard's operation would now be interrupted "as I work to reformat the website to adjust for these changes...." But she promised to keep trying to help the people of Florida "in whatever capacity I can with the limitations the Department of Health is now putting on public access to this vital health information."
And they also report a position statement from the department (filed August 17th) acknowledging something even morning damning. While a team of epidemiologists at the Department of Health had developed data for the state's plan to re-open — their findings were never actually incorporated into that plan.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for governor Ron DeSantis still insisted to the Herald that "every action taken by Governor DeSantis was data-driven and deliberate."
From the article: But when the Herald requested the data, data analysis, or data model related to reopening under Florida's open records law, the governor's office responded that there were no responsive records... Secrecy was a policy. Staffers were told not to put anything about the pandemic response into writing, according to four Department of Health employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity... Emails and texts reviewed by the Herald show the governor's office worked in coordination with Department of Health "executive leadership" to micromanage everything about the department's public response to the pandemic, from information requests from the press to specific wording and color choice on the Department of Health website and data dashboard. They slow-walked responses to questions on important data points and public records, initially withholding information and data on deaths and infections at nursing homes, state prisons and schools, forcing media organizations to file or threaten lawsuits. Important information that had previously been made public was redacted from medical examiner accounts of COVID-19 fatalities.
At one point the state mischaracterized the extent of Florida's testing backlog by over 50 percent — skewing the information about how many people were getting sick each day — by excluding data from private labs, a fact that was only disclosed in response to questions from the press. Emails show that amid questions about early community spread, data on Florida's earliest potential cases — which dated back to late December 2019 — were hidden from the public by changing "date range of data that was available on the dashboard."
Department of Health staffers interviewed by the Herald described a "hyper-politicized" communications department that often seemed to be trying to match the narrative coming from Washington.
The Herald's article also "delved into the details of the department's operation," writes DevNull127 : For example, the whistleblower complaint of Rebekah Jones quotes the state's deputy health secretary as telling her pointedly that "I once had a data person who said to me, 'you tell me what you want the numbers to be, and I'll make it happen.'"
Or, as Jones later described that interaction to her mother, "They want me to put misleading data up to support that dumb f***'s plan to reopen. And more people are gonna die because [of] this and that's not what I agreed to."
Last Friday the health department's Office of the Inspector General announced they'd found "reasonable cause" to open an investigation into decisions and actions by Department of Health leadership that could "represent an immediate injury to public health."
Meanwhile, Florida officials confirmed Friday night that their health department "will no longer update its Covid-19 dashboard and will suspend daily case and vaccine reports," according to the New York Times. "Officials will instead post weekly updates, becoming the first U.S. state to move to such an infrequent publishing schedule."
Jones had been using that data to continue running her own online dashboard, and posted Friday in lieu of data that the dashboard's operation would now be interrupted "as I work to reformat the website to adjust for these changes...." But she promised to keep trying to help the people of Florida "in whatever capacity I can with the limitations the Department of Health is now putting on public access to this vital health information."
"May have..." (Score:5, Interesting)
Being generous are we?
Re:"May have..." (Score:4, Informative)
Re: "May have..." (Score:3)
It looks more ass-covering than outright malice, but this is excellent work by the Herald of showing exactly how much time and effort goes in to keeping up appearances versus doing anything useful- and of course, this can have bad results, especially the parts with the underreported cases.
I mean, for people who trust the government to tell the truth, a reasonably dubious position at this pointâ¦
Re: (Score:3)
Baghdad Bob [wikipedia.org] was their role model.
Re: "May have..." (Score:5, Insightful)
Biggest crime of all though, she dared to criticize a Republican administration! Heresy!
Because any fault from party A means that party B is pure and holy and has never made a mistake! We all know DeSantis is an utter and complete moron, but at least he's OUR moron!
Re: "May have..." (Score:5, Interesting)
What matters in this case is that the government told her to shut up, which they admitted to. Thus, it falls under protection of whistleblower laws. When you work for the government the people are your concern, not the political leader's electioneering. The people come first, always. You only toe the partisan line if you're a higher up, not if you're rank and file.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Somebody is protecting these murderous assholes.
Re: (Score:2)
Voters don't help by reelecting them. The corruption is a little closer to home than people want to admit.
Re: (Score:2)
Being generous are we?
It's Florida. Other's being generous is really all they have.
sure it was data driven (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't understand the power Trump has over people. Trump will use people and throw them away when no longer needed. Trump even tweeted that Ted Cruz's wife was ugly and Cruz still has a brown nose from the ass kissing.
Re: (Score:2)
Trump is gone, but DeSantis is still in office. Expect people to call for him to run for President. He may even get an endorsement from Trump. Not sure if I would want that endorsement, but hey, he may get it anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, so everybody that died needlessly as result of his actions was deliberately killed. Got it.
Re: (Score:2)
So, in the end, did it work? Where is Florida nationally on the deaths/million citizens rankings?
According to what I saw some of DeSantis' critics cite elsewhere under this story, it looks like Florida ranks #26.
Re:Let's talk about data (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Florida - the new slave state (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm shocked! (Score:5, Funny)
Who would have thought that a Republican sycophant would deliberately order data be manipulated to correspond to a false narrative and ignore science. It's unheard of.
So all management? (Score:2)
Emails and texts reviewed by the Herald show the governor's office worked in coordination with Department of Health "executive leadership" to micromanage everything about the department's public response to the pandemic, from information requests from the press to specific wording and color choice on the Department of Health website and data dashboard.
So basically every manager everywhere who has to justify their existence somehow?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'll try this one more time because I can't tell if you're being intentional obtuse because you just initially didn't get the point or if you still really don't get the point.
From my first post until now, for the fourth time, I'm specifically talking about micromanaging people and projects. Nowhere did I say, or even remotely suggest, that there aren't laws governing "government officials."
I don't think it really matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Were you happy when the only news outlets were NBC, ABC, and CBS? Are you even old enough to remember that?
Re: (Score:2)
Only an average of 356 deaths per day [marketwatch.com] last week. Pack your bags on go home, everyone.
Re: (Score:2)
It's genuinely strange to watch the slow death of democracy in America and so few people care.
So few people care because outside of extreme partisans like you, people generally agree that showing valid government ID prior to voting is a very reasonable ask and that framing it as an attack on democracy is not in any way reasonable.
Re: (Score:2)
Where do you get the idea that Republicans can't win elections anymore? They gained seats in the House of Representatives in 2020. If that keeps up, they'll take the House in 2022 and possibly the Senate too.
Re: (Score:2)
Death rate by state [statista.com]
Case rate [statista.com]
California performed noticeably better on death rate, but also has a 5.5-year younger average age. You have to really twist and contort to suggest Florida is doing especially bad. Like most Republican states they we
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Here in the United States, being charged with a crime is different from being found guilty of a crime, comrade!
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget the guilty pleas [go.com], magat,
Re: (Score:2)
Which of those have anything to do with collusion?
We live in a country where prosecutors can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, and where everybody who is anybody commits about three felonies a day. The US justice system has rotted into the kind of corrupt system that autocracies have, where the question is not whether someone broke a law but who their political allies are.
Re: (Score:2)
Manafort [thehill.com], the campaign manager. But then again, I don't expect that you'd actually read anything that went against your internal narrative to begin with.
Re: (Score:2)
You OK? You got real quiet all of sudden, Entrope.
Maybe it had something to to with this quote:
"According to the then-Republican-led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the ultrasensitive campaign information that Manafort passed to a Russian spy 'identified voter bases in blue-collar, democratic-leaning states which Trump could swing,' including in 'Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota.'"
Re: (Score:2)
No, I just see no point in rebutting a partisan opinion column presented as fact by a serial liar.
Reminder: "Mr. Manafort was convicted of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account." Collusion? Nope. Muller report? Ditto -- no conspiracy, no obstruction, no collusion.
Re: (Score:2)
So you didn't bother to "read more here," didn't bother to acknowledge the that Manafort entered into a plea agreement with the special counsel, specifically ignored the findings of the "Republican-led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence" [senate.gov] in connection with the Mueller investigation, and disregarded Treasury Department sanctions [treasury.gov] against Konstantin Kilimnik for his half the very thing that Manafort plead guilty to in connection with the Mueller investigation and that was confirmed by the Select Committe
Also don't forget the Senate report (Score:2)
A law against secrecy (Score:2)
Is there any law that forbids public servants from hiding information if by hiding that information it can reasonably be concluded that hundreds of people died? In my unqualified opinion, hiding the number of covid deaths and covid infections could lead to people taking inappropriate risks and more spreading of the illness. Should that not be illegal? It seems that some people should go to jail if they caused the deaths of hundreds of people.
Re: (Score:2)
Black eye for National Review and Reason (Score:2)
Not long ago both joined a sudden wave of articles saying that of course Jones was making everything up.
Florida Governor's Office is corrupt... (Score:2)
Film at 11...
Thinking About Consequences (Score:2)
Depending on whether those connections ar
“data-driven and deliberate“ (Score:5, Insightful)
> every action taken by Governor DeSantis was data-driven and deliberate
Withholding data looks *very* data-driven and deliberate to me, so that‘s not a lie
De Santis insults CDC about cruise ships (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why governor De Santis, railing about the CDC blocking the re-opening of the cruise ships, is astonishingly disingenuous. Since the Florida department of public health was skewing their data to hide the extent of COVID-19 in Florida to protect their tourism industries, it's reasonable for the CDC to be very cautious about re-opening cruise ships which could foster COVID-19 among passengers and crew. It's compounded by that governor's refusal to permit such ships to dock to get treatment for ill passengers aboard:
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
This kind of re-activation of tourism popular among older, retired people puts them at risk of treatment like the M.S. St. Louis, denied docking at Miami due to the Jewish refugees on board in 1939. Some where accepted in other nations, but many were forced to return to Germany and died in the death camps. That is the kind of leadership De Santis displayed last year, and _now_ he wants to re-establish the cruise lines so soon after the vaccines have become generally available? Wait until we've achieved herd immunity, at approximately 95% successfully vaccinated, to re-open such likely infection carriers.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, we're supposed to correct the problem
Re:Every Government Has Ignored and Withheld Data (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Show me the money! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not too up-to-date with the policies of FL, but at the very least, we know Florida's reopening has been somewhat of a disaster given the numbers from the State now. Still thousands of new cases a day and hundreds of needless deaths
Re:Show me the money! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Show me the money! (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither of those support the claims of being a whistleblower. Where is the evidence that either (a) or (b) is true?
The evidence is the fact that the Florida Office of the Inspector General found that “the information disclosed does meet the criteria for whistleblower status as described by ... Florida statutes.”
Re: Show me the money! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Show me the money! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh come on, it's obvious DeSantis is screwing up, playing the politics game instead of governing. Guilt by association with himself is more like it.
Re:Show me the money! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Show me the money! (Score:5, Informative)
Do you have a source for that? I just looked on https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info] and it's a bit lacking since FL hasn't reported number for a couple days, but it shows CA at 1604 deaths/100k while FL is at 1721 deaths/100k.
It gets worse if you consider there should be barely any new deaths since all the older population should be vaccinated at this point and FL had a huge number of deaths in the spring so they clearly botched the vaccine rollout
Re: (Score:2)
But look at them in the past few months. The latest number from them showed thousands of new cases a day. Many states were hit hard at the beginning and had problems, but the real failure of leadership is when there are problems in the end - like Florida
Re:Show me the money! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Florida is doing very badly as states go right now. Death rate from covid worse than California, rates of new cases very high. California nearly out of the crisis, Florida meanwhile is in the midst of it.
Re:Wrong, we know Florida did much better (Score:5, Informative)
?I'm not too up-to-date with the policies of FL, but at the very least, we know Florida's reopening has been somewhat of a disaster
Guess you re not up to date at all then, because now that the final tallies are clear Florida fared far better.
Florida has a slight better death rate than California
Only if by "better" you mean higher.... Florida had one death per 580 people, versus California's one death per 623 people, according to today's totals. And that's if this story isn't correct about Florida covering up deaths. The real number may be *much* worse.
while at the same time re-opeend businesses vastly sooner, protecting many, many more people in the state from dire financial consequences.
Translation: Money is more important to you than lives. At least you're honest about it.
Re:Wrong, we know Florida did much better (Score:5, Informative)
Florida had one death per 580 people, versus California's one death per 623 people
What a weird and hard to compare way to present the actual numbers: 1604/million California, 1721/million Florida. Given the variability of numbers between state (those two values are statistically so similar as to really be the same), and the much larger number of people in the higher risk groups in Florida, it clearly did better.
That's fair, but misleading. Comparing death counts is problematic, for several reasons:
1. Deaths are impacted by differences in age, as you mentioned. Florida, with about 1/3rd again more people over 65 than California when measured as a percentage of population, should ostensibly have higher numbers, assuming all else is equal (but it isn't).
2. Deaths are impacted by access to health care (particularly among the elderly). A large percentage of the elderly in Florida retired there from somewhere else, which makes them wealthier than average, which means better access to health care, which usually results in lower fatality rates. In California, that isn't the case; most people come to California for employment; almost nobody can afford to move to California for retirement; if anything, people from California tend to retire somewhere else. So that means California's elderly should have higher fatality rates than Florida's elderly, assuming all else is equal.
3. Deaths are significantly impacted by race. This is probably because of differences in the ACE-2 receptors, but nobody is really sure. Africans and Hispanics are affected more, and as a percentage of the population, California has 45% Black and Hispanic population in total, versus only a little over 40% in Florida. But Asians have 4x the fatality rate of white, non-Hispanic people, and California has more than 5 times as many Asians as Florida, when measured as a percentage of the population. So racial differences put California at a *huge* disadvantage that likely far outweighs the difference in age breakdown.
4. Deaths are impacted by random luck and timing. As soon as a nursing home gets hit, you have a huge surge in deaths. Those sorts of events are random, bursty, and approximately impossible to prevent.
5. Deaths are greatly affected by housing density. People living in dense multifamily or multigenerational conditions (which are *way* more common in California because of the higher cost of housing) are more likely to get a high initial viral exposure, which dramatically raises the risk of dying from it. Last year, there were 44% more [smartasset.com] multigenerational households (as a percentage of households) in California than Florida.
So in one way, you would expect a higher number of deaths in Florida per capita, but in four ways, you would expect a higher number of deaths in California per capita. The extent to which those factors balance each other out is hard to predict.
The only thing you can really usefully compare across demographically different states is the overall case rate. Unfortunately for your argument, that demonstrates pretty clearly how badly Florida handled the pandemic. Only 9.6% of California residents got COVID-19, versus 10.8% of Florida residents, which means about 13% more Floridians got COVID-19 than Californians, adjusted for population.
And if you factor in the much larger number of high-density areas in California, Florida looks even worse by comparison.
And when you factor in the impact of weather, Florida's performance becomes downright appalling. In California (particularly Northern California), November through February is so cold and wet that people pretty much have to be inside most of the time. So everybody skirted the rules against doing stuff indoors by putting up tents, effectively turning outdoor conditions into indoor conditions, and allowing the virus to run rampant. That huge surge did not o
Re: (Score:3)
Of course, what was really needed was a much stricter national lockdown. Two or three weeks of complete national lockdown could have wiped out the pandemic almost completely if done properly (with everyone getting two rapid test kits to use on the last two days of lockdown, keeping each household on lockdown if anyone in that household tested positive). Unfortunately our country lacked any real leadership at the national level, and that's how we ended up with almost two-thirds of a million deaths.
Walk me thru the preparations of EVERY American living locked down for "two or three weeks" - where would the food have come from? How would perishables be stored? Who would pay for it? Etc. How would the poor, homeless, etc people live for "two or three weeks"?
There would obviously have to be a few exceptions, particularly for the homeless, but in general, two weeks of canned food per person really isn't an insane amount of food. Most people have nearly that much food in their cabinets already. And after two weeks, delivery services would be available again, which means the folks who have to remain quarantined longer would be able to easily get things brought to them, so there's no need to stock up on food for much more than about two weeks. It would require l
Re: Show me the money! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you trust the numbers coming out of Florida, there's a good chance that you were dropped on your head as an infant, likely more than once.
Republicans lie. That's what they do. That's all they do.
Re: (Score:2)
That doesn't even make any sense. Ksevio is reporting "numbers coming out of Florida". OMBad is pointing out that Ksevio is misinterpreting the data. You attack OMBad for citing data you find inaccurate (or untrustworthy).
You see a problem here? Or maybe you don't care to.
Re: (Score:2)
Point being, the numbers can't be trusted, regardless of whether they support one's point of view or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have a source for that? https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info] disagrees
Re:Show me the money! (Score:5, Insightful)
We know this because, uh, we are supposed to take the reporters' word for it. And what is the other?
Given the choice between the reporter and the lying psychopath politician I'm going with the reporter's version.
Re:Show me the money! (Score:5, Interesting)
Your poor judgement is immaterial.
The biggest victory of modern politics is that they convinced simpletons like you that reporters, and generally everybody else who exposes their corruption and ineptitude, is a a bigger liar than they are.
Re:Show me the money! (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest victory of modern politics is that they convinced simpletons like you that reporters, and generally everybody else who exposes their corruption and ineptitude, is a a bigger liar than they are.
Huh, declaring the press as the enemy of the people has been standard of behaviour of dictators and wannabe dictators for a long time. Notable people who declared the press as being the enemy of the people includes Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao and Trump.
Re: (Score:2)
No, taking over the press and using it as a mouthpiece has been the standard behavior of dictators. Pay attention.
Re:Show me the money! (Score:5, Insightful)
We know this because of the sworn affidavits, you moron. Nobody is obligated to present the affidavits to you, have you present during the drafting of the documents, or anything else. Nor are the rest of us obligated to follow your ridiculous personal standards for knowledge.
Your criticism is that FDOH never adopted (or allegedly created) policies on reopening Florida, so we shouldn't believe FDOH that it was prevented from adopting data-driven policies on reopening Florida by an administration accused of abandoning any pretense of adopting a rational policy for reopening Florida?
Your question admits its answer, now doesn't it.
Re:Show me the money! (Score:4, Interesting)
Who is this "we" that requires that you yourself see the affidavits but ignores everyone who already has seen the affidavits? If you're so dead set on seeing them, they're sworn statements filed with the court and available through PACER.
Do the work and pull them.
"While a team of epidemiologists at the Department of Health had developed data for the state's plan to re-open â" their findings were never actually incorporated into that plan." Funnily enough, they did it anyway.
"While maintaining that Jones was fired for âoeinsubordinationâ and not out of retaliation for what the complaint describes as Jonesâ(TM) refusal to be part of a âoemisleading and politically driven narrative that ignored the data and science,â documents filed by the health department confirm two of the core aspects laid out in Jonesâ(TM) complaint." Seems pretty central to the whistleblower complaint to me. So let's just see where that goes anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
"We" are everyone reading this article. The article gives no detail about the affidavits, including whether they were filed with any court or just as part of the IG investigation. What case do you think they belong to? She dropped her state lawsuit against the Florida De
Re: (Score:2)
"We" aren't demanding to see the affidavits, you are. You don't speak for me, much less everyone reading the article.
So your reading skills are as slipshod as your reasoning. "The dashboard was broken by staff who didn't trust the GIS manager and 'tried to move files to limit Rebekah's access, this caused links to break and the da
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I get it, you are too prone to confirmation bias to pay attention to what you cite.
The transfer order you mention is in a lawsuit against FDLE, alleging that the raid of her home violated her rights -- it is not about her being a whistleblower. The whistleblower complaint [usatoday.com] is separate, and turns out that it was filed with a state agency (and is "confidential"). Those affidavits would not be in PACER. So much for your insistence about their availability.
Re: (Score:2)
BZZT. These affidavits are from the public lawsuit, which is why they were obtainable as public records. You can declare that they're not about her being a whistleblower, but the suit and involved documents say otherw
Re: (Score:2)
Then provide a link or at least a docket number. The article itself says those affidavits were from the whistleblower complaint, which is a state administrative proceeding, not the civil lawsuit.
Re: (Score:2)
Again, I don't work for you.
The article itself says that the documents are public records. Ergo, they cannot be from the agency complaint that you admit is "confidential."
Re: (Score:2)
No, it does not say that. Stop lying already.
Re: (Score:2)
The alternative is that you can't see the affidavits at all, and will just have to take the OIG's word that she's a whistleblower [orlandosentinel.com] with documented support for her claims. Unless that's a lie too.
Re: (Score:2)
So you have been blowing smoke up my ass this whole thread, and now you are conflating "reasonable cause to suspect" with a determination of actual fact.
Thanks for clarifying what you are.
Re: (Score:2)
I said nothing about a determination of actual fact. I rebutted your original claim:
We know this because of the affidavits, and the OIG's findings that they provide reasonab
Re: (Score:2)
Look, man, I hate to break it to you, but lots of people here just like Rebekah Jones for some reason and don't like DeSantis. They're gonna tow the line for her no matter what.
You can argue matters of fact, but in the end, it won't change anyone's mind.
Re: (Score:2)
The departmental Inspector General finds that she has a valid whistleblower complaint and that there are grounds to investigate whether the department's actions injured public health. If this misrepresents the IGs position, I'm sure the IG will weigh in publicly in the next few days.
Does this mean everything claimed is perfectly true and accurate? No. The gap between *credibility* and *truth* can be substantial. That's why we have investigations.
It's OK to believe DeSantis because you personally like hi
Re: (Score:2)
We are supposed to believe that assertion is wrong because Florida did not adopt policies on reopening from the Florida Department of Health (that FDOH never created).
You got it. Governor DeSantis plan put out a press statement on reopening that stated it would be done using public health-driven data at the forefront using benchmarks that (it claimed) were identified by the Florida Department of Health. Deputy Secretary of Health Shamarial Roberson, on the other hand, denied that their data was used or that the department made any recommendations on the reopening plan at all.
The governor was lying. Or else the Department of Health was.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not what Roberson said, according to the article: "Deputy Secretary of Health Shamarial Roberson denied the department made any recommendations on the reopening plan at all." You made up the bit about not using their data.
There is a lot of obfuscation in TFA about this -- talking about metrics and data on one hand, and suddenly shifting to "findings" when talking about what was not used. The change in wording is important. The statements by state officials have been consistent with FDOH providing
Re: (Score:2)
If he made it up then how was it reported in the article [tampabay.com]? Are you claiming that he wrote it, or are you just throwing shit the wall to see if it sticks?
"While a team of epidemiologists at the Department of Health had developed data for the state's plan to re-open -- their findings were never actually incorporated into that plan."
It's right there in black and white. You even quoted the sentence appearing right after that confirms it: "Deputy Secretary of Health
Re: (Score:2)
Go back and read again. I quoted the same bit you did -- the statement from Roberson says nothing about data; it only talks about recommendations. And I pointed out that the article switches from talking about "data" to "findings" from that team of epidemiologists, which is significant given how much else this article is dodgy about.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Big claims require big proof, AC. Right-wing political blogs are not proof. In fact they are anything but.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Which is basically a bullshit claim. You can argue one way or the other about how the DeSantis administration wanted to update their dashboard, but it wasn't up to her to make those policy decisions.
In hindsight, opening up the state "early" did no notable harm to the citizens of Florida, with their death rates being in-line with or better than states that had persistent lockdowns. Which is quite exceptional given how many elderly live there.
It appears as though DeSantis' people wanted to cut down on deat
Re:Rebekah Jones is a self-admitted fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. Which Tucker Carlson claims that she admits was false. You need to put up her statement, in her own words, and her rebuttal, in her own words, and demonstrate an equivalence before you can validly claim that she's admitted that it was false. Denying conservative's funhouse mirror reflection of what she said does not make her rebuttal a retraction or admission of being false.
It's amazing how in conservative's world data can only be present in one particular database, as opposed to or extracts pulled from such a database. If you don't have access to the database, there's no way that you could be asked to misrepresent data pulled from the database. No way at all.
Really? I thought that the claim was that she improperly accessed a state-wide messaging system using credentials that were published in public documents and usable by practically any state employee. Oh wait, it was [theverge.com]. Where's the data theft?
So that's why you're doing that, eh?
Feel free to post your rebuttal evidence any time, because the government records that are coming out are not going your way...
Re: (Score:2)
Not really -- a commenter up-thread provided this link [nationalreview.com] as evidence that Rebekah Jones (a) claimed that she was told "told delete cases and deaths" (in one tweet, dated 24 Dec 2020) and (b) later claimed that "Deleting deaths was never something I was asked to do. I've never claimed it was." (in a now-deleted tweet, apparently from 20 May 2021). Resolving the two very clear, but contradictory, tweets is left as an exercise to the reader.
In contrast, my dig at DRJlaw's hypocrisy is because s/he got all huff [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2)
If you can't figure out the difference between suppressing cases and deaths from a dashboard based upon extracted case line data [tampabay.com] and literally deleting death records
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
2019/20 influenza cases in the US were in millions, with thousands of deaths. [cdc.gov]
2020/21 influenza cases are counted in single digits. [cdc.gov] There were 3 (three) deaths, including one child.
Probable reasons being masks, distancing and schools and large gatherings being canceled - flu vaccines being available every year, and only up to 193.8 million doses [cdc.gov] from 2019/20s 175 million. [cdc.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
There is. It's called exercising self-control and not reading the summary, much less participating in the comments.
Remember the whole manta of personal responsibility? Follow it, rather than demanding that people program a filter to protect you from yourself. Or leave and limit yourself to being spoon-fed lies by Fox News.
Re: (Score:3)
IMO, this is pure trolling. She never made the claim that they're "debunking". She did not ever claim that she was asked to delete data in an upstream database.
She was in control of the local spreadsheet that provided the data used to generate the pretty graphs for the website or whatever. Thus, one can reasonably assume that if she was asked to delete data, she was asked to delete it from there.
Basically, this "debunking" was either a deliberate troll or was written by someone who doesn't understand how
Re: (Score:2)
She just didn't want to upload the data.