The Chinese Communist Party is embracing claims by a fired Florida health department employee to cast doubt on the origins of COVID-19.
Rebekah Jones was a former COVID dashboard manager and claimed she was instructed to manipulate data, though she has not shown evidence for her shifting story. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s office said in May 2020 that Jones “exhibited a repeated course of insubordination.”
Her claims about Florida’s data were picked up by local and national media at the time. Those claims have now found their way to China.
The state-run Global Times published a piece on Saturday focusing on Jones’s accusations and subsequent layoff, claiming Florida “is causing public concern due to its serious epidemic situation and the lack of transparency on its early cases — especially in the case of 171 early patients’ data that was deleted and hidden.” It also claimed Florida cases emerged “even earlier than the virus outbreak in China’s Wuhan.”
A graphic in the piece attempted to link baseless allegations about U.S. military athlete Maatje Benassi and the Wuhan Military World Games to the claims by Jones.
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Christina Pushaw, DeSantis’s press secretary, told the Washington Examiner: “I don’t believe Rebekah Jones is an agent of China or anything like that. I do believe that China has used and exploited her conspiracy theories to push their own agenda, to push their own narrative, and to undermine and discredit DeSantis because his policies have obviously been in direct opposition to what the Chinese Communist Party wants in America.”
“When the media is trying to hit DeSantis, they don’t realize that it’s all fun and games until America’s adversaries take the conspiracy theories at face value to promote their own propaganda,” she continued.
Jones’s data claims have been widely disputed by health department staffers, and Florida’s CBS12 reported that “geographic information systems professionals at the Department of Health typically did not have access to the state system that housed the raw data,” citing Florida’s deputy secretary for health, Dr. Shamarial Roberson.
National Review explained the data controversy in June, stating, “When, last year, the Miami Herald brought its false ‘scoop’ to the attention of the Florida Department of Health, the DOH did what any serious data operation would do: It ordered an audit. Aware that a single data field, ‘Event Date,’ was pushing reporters to erroneous conclusions, the department temporarily stopped reporting it while it made sure its information was correct. The entire process took 48 hours.”
In December, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement executed a search warrant at Jones’s home and announced she was arrested in January, charging her with a felony. Investigators said she “illegally accessed the system sending a message to approximately 1,750 people and downloaded confidential FDOH data and saved it to her devices.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian took aim at DeSantis on Thursday, sharing a CCP-run China Daily video criticizing Florida’s COVID-19 response and captioning it, “While people around the world are doing everything they can to contain the spread of the #DeltaVariant…”
Zhao has repeatedly retweeted efforts by the Global Times to push the U.S. Army conspiracy theory, also tweeting about Fort Detrick.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying also began targeting DeSantis in July, tying claims about Florida’s data to China’s broader effort to cast doubt on COVID’s origins and sharing May 2020 articles about Jones.
House Foreign Affairs Republicans released a report earlier this month concluding “the preponderance of evidence” suggests coronavirus was accidentally released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in August or September 2019. China has claimed the report “smears and slanders China.”
The GOP report pointed to a “sustained disinformation campaign” led by Zhao and other Chinese officials and outlets that have pushed baseless claims about the U.S. military since March 2020.
Pushaw said: “Because people believe that Rebekah Jones nonsense, they might also believe that CCP nonsense that COVID started earlier in Florida than in Wuhan.
“Believing Rebekah Jones’s conspiracy theory means you believe that thousands of public health employees from all 67 counties, many of whom are Democrats, conspired to manipulate COVID numbers to help DeSantis politically. This is outlandish and nonsensical, but countless Americans believe it, and the CCP benefits.”
Florida has recently experienced a rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, and President Joe Biden criticized the Sunshine State for it last week. DeSantis has opposed mask mandates and pushed to keep Florida businesses and schools open.
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Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 71% of U.S. adults have received at least one coronavirus vaccine dose, with Florida ranked 23rd. Roughly 90.5% of people nationwide 65 years or older have received at least one dose, and 92% of Floridians aged 65 years or older have received at least one, giving it the 17th spot. It is the most vaccinated of any state that voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020.
Florida is the third-most populous state and has the fourth largest COVID-19 death toll, with California, Texas, and New York recording higher numbers. Florida is ranked 26th in deaths per capita, with 182 per 100,000, compared to New Jersey’s 300 per 100,000 and New York’s 276 per 100,000.
