Florida currently is only slightly better than the overall national average:- Repeat currently because as everyone should know by now things are fluid one week to the next
Oh and still a valid question that I failed to answer. Repeat I failed to answer. That I asked. Think the C is certifiable.
Florida is a red zone that is failing to follow any of the urgent steps outlined by the White House task force. The very definition of fiasco. Also keeping mind that DeSantis does everything possible to hide the reports and not make them available.
I didn't know you were also Wildchild. You have two accounts and you talk to yourself? Just because you're slow, I'll highlight the question I said you did not respond to.
If we had the worst governor ever, the most corrupt governor ever, I'd imagine we'd be a hell of a lot worse than just average. Especially with the age of our population. Its almost like the governor isn't a factor at all! But hey, don't let common sense interrupt an emotional narrative!
So the story of IT in Florida just keeps getting more amusing. The one password for the Florida "emergency portal" is publicly posted. The gateway is nothing more than the State of Florida webmail portal -- which has been taken offline meaning all the State of Florida employees can not get to their email via the external web now. While the emergency contact list is nothing more than a email distribution list. Password that Florida data scientist Rebekah Jones allegedly used is publicly available https://boingboing.net/2020/12/09/p...nes-allegedly-used-is-publicly-available.html Of course the legal justification for the raid is starting to look very weak... Florida’s justification for raiding COVID data whistleblower Rebekah Jones is looking a little shaky Is it unauthorized access if it’s a public email? https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/9/22166012/florida-raid-rebekah-jones-covid-19-data-dashboard On Tuesday, Florida state police entered the home of Rebekah Jones with guns drawn, seizing her computer and phone, in an attempt to prove that she’d sent an unauthorized “group text” through “a Department of Health messaging system” that is “to be used for emergencies only,” according to authorities. There are now two reasons why that’s significant. First, as we reported at the time, Jones isn’t just any former Florida Department of Health employee: she’s the whistleblower who built Florida’s once-celebrated COVID-19 tracking dashboard, then accused her bosses of ordering her to manipulate Florida’s data to justify reopening the state. Second, it’s now come to our attention that the supposedly private messaging system that Jones might have accessed might have effectively just been an email address — an email address that the Florida Department of Health may have inadvertently published for anyone to see on the open web. As Ars Technica reports, Redditors discovered that not only does the Florida Department of Health have a single shared username and password, but that username and password is also freely accessible on the web. Here’s a redacted screenshot that Ars captured of just one of at least seven PDFs that contain the information, PDFs that I also easily found with a Google search. All of them are still online at the time I type these words: But it’s not just the username and password that are listed: these pages also have the email address of the exact group Florida’s Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) claimed was hacked: “StateESF8.Planning.” In the FDLE’s affidavit — which is how it got a search warrant for Jones’ home — the department characterizes StateESF8.Planning as a “multi-user account group” and talks about how Florida uses it to “coordinate the state’s health and medical resources, capabilities, and capacities.” That all sounds very official and important: However, the publicly available usernames, passwords, and email addresses suggest it might have just been abog-standard mailing list with an awful lot of users, not something particularly private or secure. The email address still appears to be valid, though the Florida webmail application no longer seems to be online. None of this necessarily means that Jones didn’t send the message (though she vehemently denies she did). An FDLE agent under oath says the “group text” was specifically sent from a Comcast ID associated with her home address, and that’s why her home was raided. But if Jones did happen to send an email to a giant mailing list she used to be part of, one listed on the open web, would that be much of a crime? (I am not a lawyer.) I asked the FDLE to explain how it could have been accessed illegally — if the email address might have required someone to use private credentials somehow — but it declined, citing the active investigation. A spokesperson simply stated that my suggestions were “not accurate,” and that “this was not simply an email.” The Florida Department of Health didn’t respond to a request for comment. On Wednesday, a Republican attorney appointed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis to nominate judges resigned in protest over the raid on Jones’ house, calling it “unconscionable.” “You don’t send 12 armed officers to raid her computer for doing that. That’s Gestapo. That’s authoritarian dictator tactics. That’s not America. It really viscerally bothered me,” he told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
"DeSantis for the win" -- More retaliation Former Florida COVID scientist claims the government is retaliating against her for releasing raid video https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment...taliating-releasing-raid-video-075935428.html Rebekah Jones, the COVID-19 data scientist whose home was raided Monday by Florida state police, appeared on Wednesday’s Erin Burnett OutFront and claimed that the police released her personal information online in retaliation for a video she posted of the raid. In the video she posted, Jones can be heard yelling about the officers pointing guns at her young children. “I only turned the camera on in case something with the arrest didn’t go right. I never expected they’d storm into my house or point guns at my children,” Jones said. “Since then the police have released my home address and my private phone number online, which just feels like further retaliation for releasing the video in the first place.” That’s not the only form of retaliation Jones is alleging. A plea deal in a misdemeanor case Jones is involved in was rescinded the day after the raid, and Jones believes that was the doing of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. “I think my lawyer laid that out clearly today in the hearing that this was further state retaliation,” Jones said. “Prosecuting somebody who’s writing about abuse they suffered from an ex-boyfriend years ago when they were in college isn’t a winnable case to begin with. So by trying to rescind that offer, which we hope that they will honor, that they will honor their word on that, isn’t something that’s ever gonna happen for them. And every move of this has had the governor’s stamp on it.” State Attorney Jack Campbell said it’s not unusual to cancel negotiations when the defendant finds themselves the subject of an investigation for a new crime. Jones first drew the ire of DeSantis in May when she was fired from the Florida Department of Health (DOH) for, she says, refusing to manipulate COVID data to be more favorable as the governor was attempting to reopen the state. She’s been an outspoken critic of the DeSantis’s handling of COVID-19 ever since. Jones is accused of illegally tapping into a DOH emergency messaging system and sending a message to employees about speaking up about COVID numbers in Florida. The judge who signed the search warrant for the raid on Jones’s home, Circuit Judge Joshua Hawkes, is a recent appointee of DeSantis, and Jones doesn’t believe that’s a coincidence. “I actually found out that he had been sworn in less than a month before he signed off on that,” Jones said, adding, “To be the most recent DeSantis appointee assigned to family court, and to have this be the first thing that you sign off on, I think that speaks for itself.” On Monday following the raid, Jones said that she believed it was meant to intimidate her and others into silence, but that she would not be intimidated. On Wednesday, she had another message for DeSantis. “Just leave us alone. We’re just trying to do science. We’re just trying to do research. Just give us the chance and leave us alone. That’s all that I would say to this man,” Jones said. “It’s just, let us do the work. If you’re doing a good job, there’s nothing to hide.” More info Prosecutors pull plea deal on stalking case https://www.tallahassee.com/story/n...draws-rebekah-jones-criminal-case/6502430002/
"DeSantis for the win" -- Let's pretend I have a vaccine plan edition Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis goes to D.C. to offer extremely vague Florida COVID vaccine plan https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs...er-extremely-vague-florida-covid-vaccine-plan Participating in a White House vaccine summit on Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis outlined what appeared to be the state’s final COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan. DeSantis said the state’s proposal calls for vaccinating seniors in nursing homes before the end of December, while also getting vaccines into the hands of “high-contact” front line health-care workers in five urban areas by the end of next week. “Then, we think, based on the numbers, at the end of December we can start getting it out into the broader senior population,” DeSantis said during a panel discussion with three other governors and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. “And then [in] January, really focus on vaccinating as many elderly people as we can.” DeSantis was the only governor on the panel who didn’t directly address how the state would distribute vaccines to medically underserved and minority populations. DeSantis offered few insights into how the state would ensure that vaccines are distributed to medically underserved people, and, instead, pivoted and criticized what he called bad information. DeSantis initially said “communication is important” and that hospitals would conduct outreach but then shifted gears. “This was the first vaccine that’s really been politicized, unfortunately [ed. note: hahahahaha! Nope] … and that’s going to be something that people are going to have to deal with,” DeSantis said. The Florida governor, a close ally of President Donald Trump, criticized what he labeled as “unscientific” shutdowns and said he hoped there would be evidence-based science that people could support. “I hope we can get on the same page here [and] take politics out of it,” he said. DeSantis was the only governor on the panel who didn’t directly address how the state would distribute vaccines to medically underserved and minority populations. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee and Louisiana Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards answered the question. The governors were invited to speak on the panel because their vaccination distribution plans were considered some of the best in the nation. Meanwhile, Florida was required to submit a final copy of its COVID-19 distribution plan to the federal government by last Friday. The News Service of Florida’s requests for the document have gone unanswered. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve Pfizer Inc.’s request for emergency use authorization of its vaccine candidate this week after the FDA meets with a scientific advisory council Thursday. At Tuesday’s summit — meant to highlight the success of the Trump’s administration’s Operation Warp Speed program — officials said vaccines would ship within 24 hours of approval. A second vaccine candidate by Moderna is expected to also receive approval this month, and the FDA meets with its advisory council for that vaccine Dec. 17. Both of the vaccines require two doses to be effective. Long-term care residents and staff members will receive free vaccinations under agreements the federal government reached with CVS and Walgreens. The pharmacies will provide vaccinations to residents and long-term care staff at facilities that signed up for the program. Separately, the federal government will ship vaccines to five Florida hospitals: Jackson Memorial in Miami, AdventHealth in Orlando, Tampa General Hospital, the Memorial Healthcare System in Broward County and UF Health Jacksonville. Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida Chief Executive Officer Justin Senior said the hospitals are preparing for the vaccines,but that the facilities did not know how many doses would be delivered. DeSantis said the state plans on directing another vaccine being worked on by Johnson & Johnson to teachers and law enforcement. Johnson & Johnson said it hopes to have approval of its vaccine candidate in February.