Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Florida scientist was fired for refusing to manipulate COVID-19 data


Op Ed: Florida and Republican corruption go hand in hand. Yeah I get it, using the words Florida, Republican and corruption are triple redundant. Florida is a toilet and so is any state that elects Republicans. Mind you, Republicans politicians were not always the epitome of slime and corruption and the reason nearly all Republican elected officials are corrupt today is because the depraved Republican base would not elect or support any Republican who wasn't corrupt, so Florida.... FUCK YOU! 


To the non Democrats and other non Republicans who are complacent and whine, fuck you too. If you not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Unless and until you have the courage to rid your state of these Republican scumbags by whatever means possible you are part of the problem.

That's right, FUCK YOU Florida and your election fraud, your crime rate, your hate groups, your drug culture, and your hurricanes. You assholes elected criminal Rick Scott as your governor twice and now as your senator. If your election system is so badly rigged as most people then you need to apply a 2nd amendment solution to cure your state of Republicanism but for now encourage the mouthy lowlife MAGAts in your shit hole state to believe Tump's lie that COVID-19 is a hoax and abandon social distancing and all other prudent measures to stop the spread COVID-19 an protect yourselves in your doomed shit hole of a state.

By 2050 large coastal sections of Florida will be under water. Add a few category 4 and 5 hurricanes to the mix it could happen sooner. Hurry up and die Florida, America is depending on it.  

Death Deserving Florida Officials Fire Scientist Rebekah Jones For Not Lying


Florida's scientist was fired for refusing to 'manipulate' COVID-19 data
Florida Scientist Rebekah Jones Fired For Not Lying

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – The scientist who created Florida's COVID-19 data portal wasn't just removed from her position on May 5, she was fired on Monday by the Department of Health, she said, for refusing to manipulate data.
Rebekah Jones said in an email to the USA TODAY Network that she single-handedly created two applications in two languages, four dashboards, six unique maps with layers of data functionality for 32 variables covering a half a million lines of data. Her objective was to create a way for Floridians and researchers to see what the COVID-19 situation was in real time.
Then, she was dismissed. 
"I worked on it alone, sixteen hours a day for two months, most of which I was never paid for, and now that this has happened I'll probably never get paid for," she wrote in an email, confirming that she had not just been reassigned on May 5, but fired from her job as Geographic Information Systems manager for the Florida Department of Health. 

After USA TODAY Network first reported Jones' removal from her position in charge of the Florida COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Dashboard she created, she confirmed, as reported by CBS-12 in West Palm Beach that she was fired because she was ordered to censor some data, but refused to "manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen."

She provided no further details. 
In an email last Friday to researchers and other data users, Jones warned that with her removal changes were likely coming to the accessibility and transparency of the dashboard data. 
"They are making a lot of changes. I would advise being diligent in your respective uses of this data," she wrote. 

Related Video: Restaurants and Bars Draw Crowds After Reopening 


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Researchers who saw the email reacted with shock and dismay, suggesting it could be evidence that the Gov. Ron De Santis' government was censoring information to support the case for re-opening Florida.
Lucky Tran, a Biologist and public health communicator at Columbia University, on Twitter reacted to the news in a series of tweets: "When politicians censor scientists and manipulate the numbers, the rest of us suffer," he wrote.
US Congresswoman representing Tampa Bay, Kathy Castor wrote: "Floridians will not feel safe in opening up without transparency."
Governor Ron DeSantis' spokeswoman, Helen Aguirre Ferré, issued a statement to the Miami Herald, saying: “The Florida COVID-19 Dashboard was created by the Geographic Information System (GIS) team in the Division of Disease Control and Health Protection at the Florida Department of Health. Although Rebekah Jones is no longer involved, the GIS team continues to manage and update the Dashboard providing accurate and important information that is publicly accessible.”
But emails from Jones through April showed that Jones was the one responding to feedback from researchers in a bid to improve and update her product. Jones told the USA TODAY Network that she alone was responsible for "every line of code." 
In a May 5 email in which she announced the launch of a Spanish-language version of the dashboard, Jones wrote: "Please be patient as we get all this connected and running smoothly, and do let me know if you see any errors." It was sent the same day she was removed from her role managing of the dashboard.

For 60-days Jones said she never took a day off, not even when a powerful April 12 Easter tornado leveled her parents' home in Southeast Mississippi. A GoFundMe page was set up to help her family recover. Luckily, her mother survived. Her father, a truck driver, was in Texas at the time. 
"Sorry if I’ve been a little slow to respond these last few days," she wrote to data users in an email just 3 days later reporting updates to how data was organized, and the inclusion of county-level race data. 
Jones provided detailed updates in emails every few days, often technical and always responsive to user feedback. At the time was dismissed, she was working on making historical data more accessible to users. 
On April 25, Jones provided an explanation to why the data set would go from morning and evening daily updates to just once per day. 
"We’re gearing up to provide more analytics and data, and would not be able to process the full dataset twice daily with the staff we have," she wrote. 
"We have been directed to start tracking data related to reopening, and it is consuming a lot of staff hours on very short notice."
Days later she would be removed from the position entirely and her data users sounded the alarm that government might be censoring science. 
Jones had worked with the Department of Health as a geospatial analyst and then a Geographic Information System (GIS) manager since obtaining her doctorate in Geography from Florida State University in 2018.
She holds a masters of science degree in geography and mass communication from Louisiana State University and a bachelors in Journalism and Geography from Syracuse University. 
The Department of Health has so far not replied to request for comment.
Follow Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon on Twitter: @alemzs
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Florida scientist fired for refusing to 'manipulate' COVID-19 data
To express your outrage Contact Florida Health in Tallahassee at 850-245-4444 

COVID-19 Call Center available 24/7 | +1 (866) 779-6121 or email COVID-19@flhealth.gov

More Florida assholes to call:

State Surgeon General

Scott Rivkees, M.D.

4052 Bald Cypress Way, Mail Bin A00
Tallahassee, FL 32399
850-0245-4210

Chief of Staff

Courtney Coppola

4052 Bald Cypress Way, Mail Bin A00
Tallahassee, FL 32399
850-617-1560

Deputy Secretary for Health

Dr. Shamarial Roberson

4052 Bald Cypress Way, Mail Bin A00
Tallahassee, FL 32399
850-901-6655

Deputy Secretary for Operations

Michele Tallent

4052 Bald Cypress Way, Mail Bin A07
Tallahassee, FL 32399
850-245-4259

Deputy Secretary for County Health Systems

TBA

4052 Bald Cypress Way, Mail Bin A00
Tallahassee, FL 32399
.

Deputy Secretary for Children’s Medical Services

TBA

4052 Bald Cypress Way, Mail Bin A07
Tallahassee, FL 32399
850-245-4213

General Counsel

Louise St. Laurent

4052 Bald Cypress Way, Mail Bin A02
Tallahassee, FL 32399
850-617-1421

Inspector General

Michael Bennett

4052 Bald Cypress Way, Mail Bin A03
Tallahassee, FL 32399
850-245-4142

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