FLORIDA — Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Rebekah Jones said she was living “a normal boring life.”
“But that just didn’t seem to be in the cards for me," she told Patch.
The former Florida Department of Health employee, who built the state’s coronavirus dashboard in early 2020 at the start of the pandemic, was fired in May 2020 for what Gov. Ron DeSantis called "insubordination."
The outspoken data scientist and whistleblower claimed she was really fired for not manipulating data to support the state’s reopening from COVID precautionary shutdowns. She went on to create her own dashboard, Florida COVID Action, remaining a thorn in the DeSantis administration’s side.
And Jones’ troubles didn’t end there. She went on to face legal issues that now appear to be winding down as she reached an agreement with the state earlier this month.
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In December 2020, Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents raided her home while serving a warrant on her computer. She recorded their raid on her phone, sharing the video on Twitter.
“They took my phone and the computer I use every day to post the case numbers in Florida, and school cases for the entire country,” she tweeted at the time. “They took evidence of corruption at the state level. They claimed it was about a security breach. This was DeSantis. He sent the gestapo.”
Jones added, “...
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