Ousted dashboard designer's claims don't add up, former colleagues and experts say
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — Former colleagues of fired dashboard designer Rebekah Jones and public health experts tell CBS12 News her claims that she was directed to delete COVID cases and deaths from the state’s data are unsupported by the evidence.
Jones, a social media firebrand, has long alleged leadership in the Florida Department of Health asked her to change raw COVID data and in some cases delete deaths. The claims continue to spark national attention and mistrust of Florida’s widely available COVID data.
But, despite repeatedly making these startling accusations, Jones has offered no proof.
CBS12 News first reported on Jones’ firing in May of 2020, after she confirmed in an email to our newsroom that her removal from the state’s popular COVID data dashboard was "not voluntary" and that she was asked by her then-employer, the Department of Health, to "manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen."
In the past year, Jones has doubled down on that claim and even expanded it.
“Her story has changed over time,” one Department of Health Employee told CBS12 News.
Public health experts and Department of Health Employees consulted by CBS12 News for this article have refuted most of Jones’ claims. Several spoke on the condition of anonymity, with some expressing fear of Jones’ online persona and her hundreds of thousands of dedicated followers.
Neither Rebekah Jones nor her attorney responded to questions submitted by CBS12 News, including requests for proof of her allegations.
Claims of ‘deleting’ data:
Rebekah Jones first announced her firing from the Florida Department of Health (DOH) in early May 2020.
At the time, Jones claimed state officials asked her to manually change data on the popular COVID-19 dashboard, a site Jones played a large part in designing. The website, widely used by Floridians and media outlets monitoring the pandemic, visually displays the state’s COVID cases, deaths, and other data.
Jones -- who was a PhD student in Geography from Florida State University, according to a USA Today report -- was even praised for her work by ESRI, the company that makes the software which runs the dashboard.
“She put [her] work on hold and quickly created a COVID-19 dashboard," an article on the company's website says. "She spent the weekend compiling cases data and configuring the dashboard."
The Tampa Bay Timesultimatelyobtained emailsrelating to Jones’ employment with DOH, which proved that shortly before leaving her job Jones was asked to take down a column on the dashboard relating to the “EventDate” of COVID cases.
The “EventDate” field of the dashboard displayed the dates of when people first reported potential symptoms of coronavirus and made headlines statewide after showing that some Floridians demonstrated symptoms as early as January 2020.
Emails obtained by theTampa Bay Times show DOH staff instructed Jones to remove the “EventDate” data from the dashboard, which she protested. Eventually, she was asked to re-add the data.
Ms. Jones later wrotein a blog entry earlier this month that “my issues with how the state was presenting COVID-19 data to the public were specific, nuanced, and clearly outlined.” She added they were specified in a Whistleblower compliant she filed with the state after leaving DOH.
CBS12 News asked Ms. Jones and her attorney if they could outline what specifically was alleged in the Whistleblower complaint and have not heard back.
But on Twitter, the story goes far beyond one column of data.
The social media allegations:
Last month, Jones posted that Health Department leaders asked her to “fudge” COVID data. In the same string of tweets Jones alleged the Florida’s Deputy Secretary for Health, Dr. Shamarial Roberson, “asked me to go into the raw data and manually alter figures” in specific rural counties.
Jones alleged the scheme was a way to suppress COVID numbers in rural areas in order to allow them to meet Florida’s then-threshold to reopen.
In a now-deleted tweet from December 2020, Jones also alleged that Dr. Roberson “told me to delete cases and deaths.” Jones went on to demand Roberson resign.
But, unlike the emails obtained by the Tampa Bay Times, Jones provides no evidence that these interactions occurred.
CBS12 News sent Jones and her attorney a request for evidence proving she was asked to alter raw COVID data and we have not heard back.
In a recent, also deleted, tweet Jones backtracked writing that "deleting deaths was never something I was asked to do. I've never claimed it was."
A Florida Department of Health staffer working on the COVID response, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told CBS12 News that Jones’ allegations are widely disputed amongst DOH employees.
The staffer adds that, from their understanding, Jones did not have access to the state data system or have the privileges to alter raw COVID data.
Instead, this employee said Jones merely entered data into her dashboard, given to her by a team experts inside DOH. They added any discrepancies in Jones’ dashboard data could be cross checked against daily PDF’s released by the state, showing case counts and deaths.
“[DOH employees] were literally handing her data to display,” the staffer said.
Further, a second high ranking Department of Health employee confirmed that coronavirus data is typically sent from the county to the state, for the state to then distribute. Raw totals of things like cases and deaths are first tabulated at the county level and those records are kept.
Therefore, according to this employee, any data that was "changed" at the Department of Health's main office would conflict with county records and county health offices could alert DOH to the discrepancy. In fact, two DOH sources confirm that counties review the state's COVID data each morning for any inconsistencies.
In an interview with CBS 12 News, Dr. Shamarial Roberson said geographic information systems (GIS) professionals at the Department of Health typically did not have access to the state system that housed the raw data.
"The people that serve in this role that merely only go in and do GIS data and display," Roberson said.
Jones’ public prominence is largely built on her successful, interactive Twitter presence where she’s amassed more than 400,000 followers.
Many of those followers were acquired after Jones’ home was raided by Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents who said they traced a breach of a secure state messaging server back to Jones’ address. Her attorneys argue the search was unwarranted and unfairly targeted Jones, saying anyone could have accessed that server in a similar manner.
RELATED | Gov. DeSantis denies knowledge of Rebekah Jones raid
Jones is facing felony hacking charges and maintains her innocence.
After Jones released video of the incident with police, her account grew from 70 thousand followers days before the raid to more than 350 thousand followers a few days later.
To those followers, Jones has repeatedly tweeted about her removal from DOH. Her claims have circulated nationwide and caused widespread skepticism of the state’s readily available coronavirus case data.
The trust factor:
One medical data expert, consulted by CBS12 News, believes much of the mistrust surrounding Florida’s coronavirus numbers can be traced directly back to Jones’ repeated allegations that the state’s data can’t be trusted.
However, epidemiologists who repeatedly review the state’s COVID numbers see no significant issues with it.
“Florida does just not stand out to me as though we can’t trust the data or they’re much more inaccurate than any other state. I see no evidence in that,” says Jason Salemi, an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at USF College of Public Health who runs his own COVID data website. “I have not found any reason to believe the [data] reporting in Florida is much worse than anyplace else.”
Salemi is no longer on social media after a disagreement with Jones.
One public health expert told CBS12 News the DeSantis administration’s attitude toward the pandemic has helped fuel the allegations of data secrecy.
A Sun Sentinel report found the Governor’s office stopped publicly messaging about coronavirus mitigation and “brushed aside scientists and doctors who advocated conventional approaches to fighting the virus.” Additionally, multiple newspapers had to sue Governor DeSantis to gain access to White House COVID Task Force updates, routinely provided to each state by the Trump Administration.
In another article, theSun Sentinel also reported COVID deaths may have been undercounted in rural Florida counties. And on Tuesday, the Miami Herald reportedthat a national accrediting organization criticized the Florida DOH for not maintaining accurate records regarding COVID cases in schools.
“The data in Florida are not perfect. I can guarantee that. They’re not perfect anywhere that’s happening in every state across the country and in every country on earth,” Salemi says, adding any massive discrepancies in deaths or case counts would likely be noticeable.
Jones and her supporters routinely cite reporting on data discrepancies while criticizing DeSantis’ handling of the pandemic. But, no one has provided evidence that deaths or cases were deliberately altered from the state’s raw COVID data, as Jones has claimed.
“There’s no way that deaths are missing somehow,” said Natalie Dean, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Florida. Dean said Florida’s COVID data “doesn’t stand out” compared to other states.
In March, Dean tweeted that the “widespread notion that the Florida Department of Health is ‘cooking the books’ on COVID data is unsupported and unhelpful. If we aim to have a real conversation about Florida, folks need to move past this.”
After a study found Florida could have a large number of uncounted, excess deaths due to the pandemic, Lauren Rossen, a statistician at the CDC, told Yahoo News she did not see anything out-of-the-ordinary in Florida's COVID data.
"Florida doesn’t stand out to me,” she told Yahoo.
However, experts like Dean and Salemi routinely encounter skeptics who express doubt in Florida’s COVID data. Many cite Jones.
JAY O’BRIEN: What do you say to those people that tell you they will never trust the state's data?
JASON SALEMI: That’s on them. I would say, ultimately, look at the evidence.
This article has been updated from a previous version, adding comments from a new interview with Dr. Shamarial Roberson. Additionally, it corrects Ms. Jones' status as a Geography PHD student at FSU, according to reporting in USA Today. A previous version of this article said Ms. Jones had earned her PHD.