But questions remain about why she was fired. State officials insist that her claims about hiding virus data are false. She was dismissed, they said, because she made unilateral decisions to modify the virus dashboard without approval.
Our data is available, Mr. DeSantis said when Ms. Jones was fired. Our data is transparent. In fact, Dr. Birx has talked multiple times about how Florida has the absolute best data, he added, referring to Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the head of the White Houses coronavirus response, who had praised the state dashboard when Ms. Jones was overseeing it.
So any insinuation otherwise is just typical partisan narrative trying to be spun, Mr. DeSantis concluded.
The new dashboard Ms. Jones set up surfaces some data about virus cases that had been buried deep in PDF files on the state website and generally shows a higher number of cases than the number reported by the state. It also includes information from other agencies, such as hospitalization rates from the Agency for Health Care Administration that are not on the state dashboard.
But hers has remained a mostly one-woman operation. Though several of her former co-workers have recently left the department, they have not spoken publicly about why they stopped working there, nor have they joined Ms. Joness cause.
The story took a surprising new turn on Monday morning, when agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement appeared at the door of Ms. Joness townhome.read more
A State Scientist Questioned Florida’s Virus Data. Now Her Home’s Been Raided.
