From the very beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a great deal of doubt surrounding the subject.
This isn’t entirely unexpected; throughout history, many high-profile, worrisome events have had a way of conjuring conspiracy theories as a sort of coping mechanism. We can’t trust the government to tell us everything about what’s going on so we seek alternative solutions, always looking for coincidences that fit the theory we thought up in our heads.
Its been no different with COVID, there have been a plethora of conspiracy theories, some even pushed out by citizens with insider knowledge of the issue itself.
This put a whistleblower from Florida in a terrifying situation.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement on Monday raided the home of a former Department of Health data analyst who has been running an alternative web site to the state’s COVID dashboard, alleging that she may have broken into a state email system and sent an unauthorized message to employees.
But Rebekah Jones, who was was fired from her job in May as the geographic information system manager for DOH’s Division of Disease Control and Health Protection and who has since filed a whistleblower complaint against the state, denied having any role in the alleged intrusion into the state web site and instead said she believes Monday’s action was intended to silence her.
Jones said state police came into her house at 8:30 a.m., at gunpoint and, over the course of three hours, swept her house and took her cell phone and several laptops that contained COVID-19 data that she has accumulated over several months.
The raid will only add fuel to the conspiracy theory fire surrounding COVID-19 and Jones’ role in how Florida handled the situation.
