Woman who designed Florida's Covid-19 dashboard removed from her position
The comments here on HN are borderline irresponsible.<p>All we know is that someone was removed for what they perceived be &#x27;censoring some data&#x27; - and we really have almost no context or material facts.<p>It continues to amaze me how people jump to conclusions and can&#x27;t fathom how power, information, and communications work within any organization and that it&#x27;s always complicated.<p>Having responsibility is almost 100% &#x27;making sausage&#x27; and there is literally no situation in which the public will have access to 100% of the information, and when they do, it will be communicated in a specific way, hopefully for the public good.<p>For example, someone could feel that it&#x27;s &#x27;really important&#x27; to publish the latest finding on Hyrcoxychloroquine, or Remdesevir or whatever, when from a public communications perspective, it may not be helpful at all to be a focus on this information. Some might call this censorship, some might call it suppression, others might call it responsible.<p>How about hospital vacancy rates? Because all over North America, the vast majority of Hospitals are sitting idle, and medical staff are being laid off. Funny we don&#x27;t see that on CNN. Obviously, from a public health policy, maybe this wouldn&#x27;t be such a good set of data to focus on because people might get the impression that there is materially no pandemic, unable to grasp that in fact, the low rates of hospitalization are due to social distancing measures.<p>My gosh man this is everyday life in so many fields.<p>If some Florida politician was trying to literally get numbers manipulated, hopefully, this will be dealt with in the criminal justice system, but this may not be the case.<p>COVID is a sausage-making communications nightmare for everyone involved, there are massive legal issues, massive economic consequences, existential life and death concerns, literally geopolitical realignment happening in real-time.<p>Let&#x27;s try to get more information.<p>Edit - a relevant example from Miami Herald: [1] &quot;But since the state’s first confirmed coronavirus case, officials have kept some basic information confidential. Most notable: DeSantis has chosen not to reveal the names of nursing homes experiencing outbreaks — cases that, according to Florida Department of Health data, have resulted in at least 126 deaths.&quot;<p>This is exactly the same in Quebec - they don&#x27;t want to release the individual names of the homes (they are of course known to the occupants and relatives) because it&#x27;s not meaningful information for the public to have. They&#x27;ve made a reasonable case for not doxxing the homes with problems.<p>So this is a pretty good example of where public information is managed for the public good. It happens everywhere.<p>What troubles me specifically about the whistleblower complaint is that there were no specifics at all - no actual articulation of malfeasance. &#x27;Censorship&#x27; is a pretty vague term.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.miamiherald.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;coronavirus&#x2F;article242050696.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.miamiherald.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;coronavirus&#x2F;article24205069...</a>