Bolsonaro vs. public health

The Florida Health Department fires its top data scientist; Brazil's coronavirus outbreak is getting worse. Tonight's Sentences was written by Cameron Peters. TOP NEWS Coronavirus data called into question in Florida, Georgia Doug Mills/The New York Times/Getty Images - Florida’s top data scientist, who until recently managed the state’s coronavirus dashboard, said Monday that her removal from the position was involuntary and that she was ousted for refusing to “manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen.” [[CBS 12 / Sabrina Lolo and Lizandra Portal](] - That scientist, Rebekah Jones, warned in a note following her departure that “I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency” for the database going forward. Previously, the White House had lauded the dashboard for those exact qualities. [[Florida Today / Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon](] - Though a spokesperson for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has denied that Jones was removed for the reasons she claimed, the incident has nonetheless raised concerns about the accuracy of Florida’s apparently positive Covid-19 numbers in recent weeks. [[Guardian / Richard Luscombe](] - On Tuesday, the Tampa Bay Times reported that, immediately before she was fired, Jones had objected to the deletion of data showing that some Floridians reported Covid-19 symptoms well before cases of the virus were officially reported in the state. [[Tampa Bay Times / Langston Taylor](] - And Florida isn’t the only state to have a potential statistics problem. Last week, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that the Georgia health department strung together dates out of sequence, resulting in a false impression that virus cases were declining consistently. [[Twitter / David Fahrenthold](] - The state has since apologized for the error, but some, such as state Rep. Jasmine Clark, who holds a PhD in microbiology, have suggested it's difficult to see how the data, which is used to make crucial public health decisions, could be fumbled so substantially “without it being deliberate.” [[AJC / Willoughby Mariano and J. Scott Trubey](] - Even beyond the data issues troubling Florida and Georgia, pandemic statistics have been something of a contentious topic. Counting deaths from Covid-19 isn’t as straightforward as it might seem, and in places like New York City, the death toll is probably being underreported as people die at home from the virus. [[Scientific American / Stephanie Pappas](] - As Vox’s Matthew Yglesias writes, President Donald Trump has repeatedly theorized that coronavirus deaths are actually overreported, and his administration has pushed states to reassess the way they count deaths to keep the tally lower than it otherwise would be. [[Vox / Matthew Yglesias](] Brazil's coronavirus crisis - On Tuesday, Brazil reported a record-high number of Covid-19 deaths — almost 1,200 in a single day — as well as more than 17,000 new coronavirus cases. The country now stands in third place behind the US and Russia in terms of its total number of confirmed cases. [[CNN / Shasta Darlington, Tara John, and Flora Charner](] - The public health system in São Paulo, Brazil's largest city, is nearing its breaking point. The city’s mayor warned that hospitals could exceed capacity in two weeks as the pandemic accelerates. [[BBC](] - The real numbers in Brazil are likely much worse than the official statistics due to a dearth of testing, among other issues, but President Jair Bolsonaro has defied public health advice and resisted implementing lockdowns. [[Deutsche Welle](] - Nonetheless, regional governments in Brazil have put stay-at-home orders in place in some parts of the country in hopes of curbing the spread of the virus. One Brazilian public health expert said of the lockdowns that “it is late in terms of avoiding hospital collapse, but certainly it isn’t too late to avoid a bigger catastrophe.” [[AP / David Biller and Mauricio Savarese](] - And while President Trump has frequently found an ideological ally in Bolsonaro, on Tuesday he floated potential travel restrictions on the country. “I don’t want people coming in here and infecting our people,” Trump told reporters. [[Washington Post / Marina Lopes](] MISCELLANEOUS In the midst of a pandemic, the Trump administration is deporting migrant children, often alone and without the usual protections. [[NYT / Caitlin Dickerson](] - On Tuesday, a QAnon conspiracy theorist became the GOP nominee for US Senate to challenge Democratic incumbent Jeff Merkley in November. [[Washington Post / Felicia Sonmez and Mike DeBonis](] - The coronavirus has caused nearly half of US households to lose at least some income, according to Census Bureau data. [[NPR / Hansi Lo Wang](] - Why Trump’s threat to cut funding for states trying to make it easier to vote in a pandemic is unconstitutional. [[Vox / Ian Millhiser](] VERBATIM "If [Trump] did this privately, it would — rightly — be a massive scandal. Yet when he does it as part of a few dozen wildly varied missives over the course of a morning, it’s written off as just another wacky missive from the wacky president." [[David A. Graham on Trump's threatening of state election funding via Twitter / Atlantic](] LISTEN TO THIS [Why Netflix is the clear winner of the streaming wars right now]( Why is Netflix the clear winner of the streaming wars right now? Plus, are we going to run out of stuff to watch? [[Spotify / Arielle Duhaime-Ross and Peter Kafka](] [Read more from Vox](#) [The other plague: Locusts are devouring crops in East Africa and the Middle East]( [The haunting of Girlstown]( [The inescapable pressure of being a woman on Zoom]( [“I am considering myself an essential worker”: An imam on carrying out Muslim funerals amid the pandemic]( [How exposing healthy volunteers to Covid-19 for vaccine testing would work]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [YouTube]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. Manage your [email preferences](, or [unsubscribe]( to stop receiving all emails from Vox. If you value Vox’s unique explanatory journalism, support our work with a one-time or recurring [contribution](. View our [Privacy Notice]( and our [Terms of Service](. Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036. Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved.