I am referring to https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/19/florida-covid-19-coronavirus-data-researcher-out-state-reopens/5218897002/

which is story about Rebekah Jones and her work on reporting COVID-19 cases in Florida. Apparently she is using ArcMap (or, more generally, ArcGIS), which I just so happens to have been subject of a course last semester.

1) It so easy for me to imagine that her complaint about her refusal to ‘manipulate’ the data is a) true b) not true c) somewhere in the middle where reporting issues or decisions are areas where reasonable people can reasonably disagree.

2) re quote “she single-handedly created two applications in two languages, four dashboards, six unique maps with layers of data functionality for 32 variables covering a half a million lines of data”: I half-believe this. a) 2 ‘applications’ might mean 2 different analyses or scripts for presentation. b) ‘two languages’: did she write text in English and Spanish? It is possible. c) 32 variables: sounds like program pulls in demography datasets with lots of variables (population, %race, housing, etc). d) ‘half a million lines of data’ sounds believable. e) ‘single-handedly’: possible, but then she works in department, has 1 or more managers, and has to respond to them. So possible, but also possible that other people supplied input which she incorporated, but I doubt this is all her project independent of anyone else.

3) re quote “I worked on it alone, sixteen hours a day for two months, most of which I was never paid for, and now that this has happened I’ll probably never get paid for”. Not sure what to believe about this. She could be paid hourly, or could be a salaried employee. Maybe she is salaried and thinks she should bet raise or reward for extra hours put in. I doubt ‘alone’ for reason above (ie input from managers). I am inclined to doubt 16 hours/day for 2 months: never bought groceries?

4) re ‘her data users sounded the alarm that government might be censoring science. ‘ USAToday has to be USAToday. All quotes from 3rd parties are in supported of this contention.