DeSantis: Claims Of Fake COVID Data Are A “Nonissue”

The Sarasota Herald reports:

Facing an explosive charge that his administration is manipulating coronavirus data to help make the case for reopening Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis played down the controversy today as a “nonissue.”

Rebekah Jones, a data expert at the Florida Department of Health, told FLORIDA TODAY that she was fired on Monday. And she said in an email to the CBS12 television station in West Palm Beach that she faced blowback because she refused to “manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen.”

The governor’s office released a statement Tuesday saying Jones was terminated after a “repeated course of insubordination including her unilateral decisions to modify the Department’s COVID-19 dashboard without input or approval from the epidemiological team or her supervisors.”