A Tale of Two Covid-Era Data Whistleblowers
It was not the best of times, it was the absolute worst of times
Never did we think when we wrote our first article about COVID-19 dashboards that it would come to serve as part one of a series about covid-era data analysis, but here we are writing our second article.
Data Whistleblower #1: Rebekah Jones
The fired Florida data scientist made national news for refusing to make requested changes to the state’s official COVID-19 dashboard. Details about the nature of alterations she was asked to implement are nicely detailed here in this article from a couple weeks ago, and just the other day WaPo among other outlets have reported that she has built her own competing dashboard.
We need more brave data science professionals like Ms. Jones who tell it like it is even if they risk losing their jobs. Really a good ethical organization should want a data analyst who does a bit more than just turn in the report or dashboard without question. But sadly sometimes there is some fudging of the data that someone will ask you to do in order to make someone look good. We can’t tell you how many times we have had to make case statements in SQL that go something like this:
CASE WHEN manager IN (’Shitty Manager’,’Person who got their job only through nepotism’,’Asshole’) THEN ‘Amazing! Five stars!’ ELSE 'Merely Meets Expectations' END AS “Boss Performance Rating”
So what exactly did Ms. Jones do regarding Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard that was so horrible as to piss off Governor Ron DeSantis? There were three main categories of awful and nasty transgressions she did:
- Not wanting to take away the display of data that was previously available
- Not wanting to apply inconsistent logic in making classifications
- Wanting to use COUNT (DISTINCT PATIENT_ID) instead of COUNT(COVID_TEST_SPECIMEN_ID)
On its face the preceding list doesn’t sound too bad and just seems like a difference in professional opinion as to what columns to include and what the exact criteria needs to be when coding the variable definitions. Problem is someone who is intimately familiar with the data knows exactly what is going on when they are asked to use X methodology instead of Y.
In the case of the third deadly sin on the list, it’s not just that X methodology is different from Y, it was that X was flat out incorrect and not valid whatsoever. Without getting too much in the weeds — it’s fine if you want to use COUNT of tests instead of COUNT DISTINCT of patients. (In fact the former is what we have observed is used by the majority of COVID-19 dashboards at hospitals and health systems nationwide.) Just whichever you use, do it for both the numerator AND the denominator. No mix n’ match. Jeez Louise, this is basic math.
Data Whistleblower #2: John Flynn
While not having directly to do with COVID-19 as it relates to testing or the disease itself, everyone is well aware of this pandemic’s economic impact in the world. And that’s where Mr. Flynn comes in.
He blew the whistle in a complaint he filed with the SEC regarding commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS for short). Propublica broke the story here but suffice it to say that once again Wells Fargo and other too-big-to-fail banks were up to their dirty old shenanigans. Short story is that much like Florida was doing with its COVID-19 dashboard to alter the data, servicers of these complicated CDOs of packaged-up commercial real estate mortgages similarly put lipstick on a pig to make these Frankenstein-like concoctions look better than what they really were.
So why should we care? Well Flynn thinks that this house of cards is going to come tumbling down just like it did in the 2008 housing market crash. Guess who’ll have to bail out these liars and fraudsters again this time around? That’s right — we the tax payers.
There are naysayers that can’t or won’t believe what Flynn uncovered in his data analysis could be true. But it’s more unbelievable that some people can even deny that this is going on. Pleasure and business travel has ground to a halt, and a much larger percentage of people are working from home than before the pandemic took hold of the economy. Thus, mortgage payments on commercial real estate such as hotel and resort properties and corporate office parks quite simply are ceasing to be made, rendering the CMBS pretty much worthless.
This tale is still being written
As of the time of this writing, Rebekah Jones still has not found a new data scientist job, and John Flynn’s whistleblower complaint remains just that — a complaint, no findings yet from an official SEC investigation.
So for now, Ms. Jones and Mr. Flynn will just have to be content with intangible non-remunerative rewards. Like knowing that they spoke up and exposed the truth, instead of being part of the problem by remaining silent like everyone else in their industries.
In a just world there would be no need for Rebekah Joneses and John Flynns. We would have emperors who wore actual clothes in the first place.
