Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Investigators Knock Down Claims DeSantis Administration Doctored COVID Numbers; Hospitals that Opened as COVID Struck Face a Federal Catch-22 that could spell their doom, and other C-Virus related stories

Investigators knock down claims DeSantis administration doctored COVID numbers:
Florida investigators have rejected a former health department employee’s claim that she was fired for refusing to doctor COVID stats to benefit Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Florida Department of Health’s Office of Inspector General found “insufficient” or no evidence that data scientist Rebekah Jones was told to manipulate or misrepresent pandemic numbers, NBC reported.
Jones, who ran Florida’s COVID-19 data dashboard, received national attention after accusing superiors of fudging data to bolster DeSantis’ case to ease restrictions.
Florida officials denied her charges from the outset.
Jones, who is currently a Democratic candidate for Congress running against incumbent Republican Matt Gaetz, was fired one month after making them. She still plans to sue the state for wrongful dismissal, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
“I don’t think it was ever realistic for them to come out and be like, ‘yeah, everything she said is true, we’re sorry, my bad,'” she told the paper. --->READ MORE HERE
Jay Reeves / AP
Hospitals that opened as COVID struck face a federal Catch-22 that could spell their doom:
People who live in this town celebrated when, in 2020, early in the coronavirus pandemic, Thomasville Regional Medical Center opened.
It offered state-of-the-art medicine previously unavailable in a poor, isolated part of Alabama. The timing seemed perfect: New treatment options would be available in an underserved area just as a global health crisis was unfolding.
But that timing could prove to be the new hospital’s undoing.
Deep in the red two years into the pandemic, the 29-bed, $40 million hospital is among three medical centers nationally that say they’re missing out on millions in federal pandemic relief money because they’re so new that they lack full financial statements from before the crisis to prove how much it cost them.
In Thomasville, located in timber country about 95 miles north of the Gulf Coast port of Mobile, hospital officials have worked for over a year to convince federal officials they should have gotten $8.2 million through the CARES Act, not just the $1 million they received. With a total debt of $35 million, the quest gets more urgent each day, said Curtis James, the hospital’s chief executive officer.
“No hospital can sustain itself without getting the CARES Act money that everybody else got,” James said. --->READ MORE HERE
Follow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:

Why a Massive New Covid Wave Has Escaped the Data

Coronavirus weekly need-to-know: long COVID in adults, cases, omicron, CDC data & more

USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates

WSJ: Coronavirus Live Updates

YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates

NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest

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