While the Coronavirus is forcing the country to shut down several states, Florida and Georgia are now scrutinized for their role in sharing accurate and transparent reports on COVID-19 cases.
As reported earlier, in Florida, a woman official, Rebekah Jones, who was behind the state's "dashboard," a web page showcasing the data related to Coronavirus, claimed that she was removed from the project but later the state government portrayed the story differently in the official statement.
Coming to Georgia, people started questioning data tracking of COVID-19 cases after an inaccurate chart was posted on the Department of Public Health's website with the dates out of order and then officials removed it quickly.
However, it should be noted that these two states are among the first to announce the reopening of businesses and public places. But many people hinted that these issues could have appeared as the states wanted to show fewer Coronavirus cases.

Woman Employee Fired in Florida
On Friday, May 15, fired employee Jones reached out to researchers and people who had signed up to receive updates from the data portal to reveal that she was removed from her post at the Florida Department of Health, reported Florida Today.
But as per the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the email from Jones as well as what she said had been "misrepresented," and that the situation was "a non-issue."
On Tuesday, May 19, the Florida Department of Health said in an official statement that Jones had "exhibited a repeated course of insubordination" during her tenure there, making unilateral decisions to modify the Coronavirus dashboard without input or approval from the epidemiological team or her supervisors.
"The blatant disrespect for the professionals who were working around the clock to provide the important information for the COVID-19 website was harmful to the team," the department said and also added that Jones has been asked to resign by 5 pm Thursday, or she will be "terminated."
THREAD
— John ‘Murder Hornet’ Cardillo (@johncardillo) May 20, 2020
BREAKING: Rebekah Jones, the FL Dept. of Health data manager who claimed she was fired for refused to tamper with Coronavirus data is not the hero the MSM is portraying. That's #FakeNews
She was fired for insubordination and has a long rap sheet.
Gov's statement: pic.twitter.com/Q67sRpKQYu
@richlusc Thanks for your Guardian piece on Rebekah Jones and DeSantis. A lot of observers are acting "shocked," but why would we expect anything different from a Trump/GOP whose political SURVIVAL depends on sandbagging COVID numbers? Here's some light-shedding comparative data: pic.twitter.com/PNLii61sMh
— Jonathan Simon (@JonathanSimon14) May 20, 2020
Being a scientist, I’m trained to speak of the data, not the other way. You can’t manipulate and politicize scientific results to fit in with political agenda. That is not how science works. #RebekahJones #ScienceMatters https://t.co/seMBCVvfzT
— Tam Vo, PhD (@tamdmvo) May 20, 2020
Inaccurate Georgia Coronavirus chart
As per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a bar chart on the Department of Public Health's website showed the number of COVID-19 cases in the counties, and most infections had dropped every single day for the prior two weeks. The graph also revealed a downward trajectory, but neither it had dates in chronological order, nor the graph keeps the counties in the same position each day, which triggered confusion among people.
But later, it was reported that the graph has been taken down from the official website which also reported 2,400 more confirmed cases than tests that were performed on one day last week. As per the report, a spokesperson said that the chart showed inaccurate details due to an error in how they sorted data.
In this matter, state Rep. Scott Holcomb said, "I don't know how anyone can defend this graph as not being misleading, I really don't." A spokeswoman for Governor Brian Kemp, Candice Broce, tweeted on May 11 that "the graph was supposed to be helpful but was met with such intense scorn that I, for one, will never encourage DPH to use anything but chronological order on the x-axis moving forward."
Later, on the same day, Broce wrote on Twitter that "the x-axis was set up that way to show descending values to more easily demonstrate peak values and counties on those dates. Our mission failed. We apologize. It is fixed."
Georgia fudged the coronavirus charts used to show it was safe to reopen https://t.co/dOCzT5qTgl
— Gary Kleier (@gjkleier) May 20, 2020
So.
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) May 19, 2020
Are we going to have a conversation about the fact Georgia got caught doctoring their numbers and then Florida fired a manager who refused to doctor the numbers?
Because. That seems like something we should talk about.