OPEN MIC FUDGING THE NUMBERS

Florida’s Gov. DeSantis resembles the guy in charge here in Missouri — Gov. Mike Parsons. Manipulating the COVID crisis, withholding data, favoring friends for CARES distributions toward socalled “mitigation” efforts that cost plenty, but who do little or nothing.

We have the instance of buckets of money — millions of dollars — for faulty face masks that will never be recouped. We’ve got a handy-dandy COVID “Dashboard” on the state website that, incidentally, never has looked so spiffy as it does now since Parsons channeled federal funds to a data guru consultant buddy.

This solves no real problems and, all the while, people get sick and die.

But going after data analyst like Rebekah Jones in retaliation? That’s something even Parsons has not thought to do. As a retired data analyst, I know the story — the pressure, the stupidity that Jones must have faced.

They say that numbers don’t lie. That’s what makes DeSantis and Parsons nervous. So hide the numbers or dress them up in obscure analytical terms, throw safety measures out the window and hope for the best.

But what do you do with the dead bodies? Pile them higher and deeper is what they say.

– Catherine M. Dobson,

Lexington, MO