Florida residents did not have enough "accurate data related to to the extent and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic… to assess the efficacy of COVID-19 control measures and take appropriate actions.”
In other words, the people of Florida didn’t have enough accurate information to make informed decisions about the pandemic.
And the state knew it.
That’s from an internal audit of COVID-19 data released to the public yesterday, which shows how more than 3,000 COVID-19 deaths were never added to the total deaths the state reported.
The internal audit of Florida Department of Health COVID-19 data for the first six months of the pandemic - during which time I managed the public data and surveillance systems - was received by state authorities on May 26.
On that same day, the state illegally leaked a copy of its internal Inspector General’s report related to my ongoing whistleblower case to Marc Caputo - a known DeSantis ally with a history of getting fired for breaching basic journalistic ethics.
Caputo tried to spin a mostly-neutral IG report into a win for the state, despite the fact that the report stated I told the truth, but the state doesn’t believe what it did broke any rules, and ruled they could not “prove or disprove” that I was ordered to fabricate data.
The state pulled a similar stunt last year, when state officials worked with the National(ist) Review to publish a defamatory article *actually* titled: The Whistleblower who wasn’t. The article claims to have used for all of its information a single anonymous source. That “source” is William Parker Hinson, who had not worked for DOH since 2018 and whose job I took when I became manager. He had nothing to do with the dashboard, and spent a good chunk of his time the last two years trying to glob onto the press machine by defaming me.
Not long after the defamatory National(ist) Review post, the state granted me official whistleblower protection and validated the claims made in my complaint.
Caputo would have you believe my whistleblower complaint was dismissed, or that it proved retaliation did not occur, or that it proved I spread “COVID-19 conspiracies,” but every one of those attacks by Caputo are a lie.
Our complaint was never filed with DOH, and the investigation is still ongoing. The IG never considered or investigated retaliation - that’s not even mentioned in their internal report - and neither are conspiracy theories, which Caputo has been peddling on behalf of DeMonster himself for two years.
So where do I go to get my apology?