Florida has about 425,000 state employees, so it’s not every day that an entry-level, $40,000-a-year hire draws statewide media attention and scorn.

If that newly hired COVID-19 data analyst in the Florida Office of Policy and Budget (OPB) is a “ ‘sports guy’ moonlighting as a COVID-19 analyst” with no knowledge of immunology but an exhaustive history of spreading conspiracy theories and dismissing science, however, then observers notice.