Florida data scientist says governor is trying to intimidate scientists following raid

Updated ·3 min read

Rebekah Jones, the former data scientist at the Florida Department of Health (DOH) who was fired in May after a dispute with officials over properly reporting COVID-19 data, appeared on Cuomo Prime Time Monday night just hours after her home was raided by state police. Jones has been an outspoken critic of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and how COVID numbers are reported in the state, accusing officials of manipulating data to make it appear as though Florida isn’t being hit as hard by the pandemic as it actually is.

Since being fired from the DOH, Jones, who was responsible for building the state’s COVID-19 dashboard, created a dashboard of her own to track and report on COVID numbers. She believes the raid was simply an attempt by DeSantis to intimidate her and other scientists.

“This is just a very thinly veiled attempt of the governor to intimidate scientists,” Jones said, “and get back at me while trying to get to my sources as he’s been firing DOH staff left and right.”

Jones is accused of illegally accessing an emergency system and putting up a message urging state employees to speak out about COVID-19, but she claims it wasn’t her.

“I haven’t had access to any systems at DOH for over six months. I’m not a hacker. As the governor pointed out, many months ago, I’m not that tech savvy, and have no interest in reaching out to DOH,” Jones said. “I’ve been publicly telling people to come forward for months. That is the way that you do it. And I, better than anybody, know that people at DOH aren’t going to. If they didn’t come out before, when I warned everybody that DeSantis would, and eventually he did get people killed, they’re not going to come out now.”

Jones said that she just saw the message that was illegally posted on Monday, and said she doesn’t use the language the person used, and that they were short by about 430 deaths from COVID-19, and that she would not have gotten the number of deaths in the state wrong.

During the raid, police seized Jones’s phone and computer, and she had a warning for any state employee who may have reached out to her about COVID-19 since her firing.

“On my phone is every communication that I’ve ever had with someone who works at the state who has come to me in confidence and told me things that could get them fired or in trouble like this,” Jones said. “And I just want to say to all those people right now, if he doesn’t know already, DeSantis will know soon enough that you’ve been talking to me. So be careful.”

Jones also had a message for DeSantis.

“DeSantis needs to worry less about what I’m writing about, and more about the people who are sick and dying in his state,” Jones said. “And doing this to me will not stop me from reporting the data, ever.”

Cuomo Prime Time airs weeknights at 9 p.m. on CNN.

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