As Florida begins to reopen, the architect and manager who designed Florida’s Covid-19 dashboard announced that she and her department are no longer overseeing the dashboard, Miami Herald reported.
Rebekah Jones announced her May 5 removal in a heartfelt email to researchers and other members of the public who had signed up to receive updates on the data portal. She said that for “reasons beyond my division’s control,” her office is no longer managing the dashboard, involved in its publication, fixing errors, or answering any questions related to the dashboard.
The removal was not voluntary and came after she was asked to censor some data and refused to “manually change data” to help boost plans to reopen the state, Jones told CBS12 News in an email.
Over the last few weeks, the site “crashed and went offline, data disappeared with no explanation, and access to the underlying data sheets became difficult,” Jones told CBS12 News. Since she’s been removed, these issues have not been fully fixed.
Once commended by the White House for its transparency and accessibility, the removal of Jones and her team of researchers calls into question the future of the dashboard, the reliability of the data it provides, and how the data will be used going forward. Independent researchers view the removal of Jones and her team for refusing to manipulate data as government censorship of science.⠀⠀
The dashboard is an interactive map showing Florida’s coronavirus cases. It was created by Jones and a team of Florida of Department Health data scientists and officers. The dashboard shows total Covid-19 cases, positive residents, hospitalizations, how many have died from the virus and provides these numbers not just for the state of Florida, but also on a national and global scale.
As of today, Florida stands at more than 46,440 positive cases of Covid-19, and 1,997 have died due to the virus.
On Monday, Florida began phase one of its reopening plan. Restaurants, malls, libraries, and gyms have been able to reopen at 50% capacity.
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