from desantis' office denied this, instead claiming that she was fired for insubordination and unilateral decision-making regarding her dashboard additions. desantis added that jones contradicted state epidemiologists. in may 2021, jones was granted whistleblower protection by the florida commission of human resources, but the investigation found allegations of retaliatory adverse action unsubstantiated and was closed in september 2022. jones posted a forged version of the notice of termination she received claiming the commission found she disclosed and demonstrated violations of florida statutes and qualified her termination as legitimate and non-retaliatory under florida statute that classified her as employment as selected exempt service, making her employment at-will. the authentic letter provided by the commission made no such claims. the office of inspector general later found her claims to be unsubstantiated or unfounded; those she accused were exonerated of any misconduct. may 17: monroe county commissioners vote for a mask mandate that requires all employees and customers of businesses to wear masks. may 18: broward county and miami-dade county enter phase one of reopening. may 22: the miami beach city commission votes that miami-dade hotels and beaches reopen by june 1, but that did not happen. may 27: ocean drive on miami beach is closed off to allow restaurants to expand their seating. people are to along the sidewalks and in the closed off streets to maximize the restaurant capacities. first rise of cases (june–september 2020) june 1: the florida keys reopened and lifted the roadblock. earlier in may, in a virtual round table, miami-dade emergency manager frank rollason said the county plans to test everyone coming into a shelter for covid-19 and separate people who are ill or have symptoms from healthy people in different parts of the shelter. june 1, he contradicted himself in an email and said the county plans to screen evacuees for symptoms, not test them. the state hopes to have rapid testing by august or september and to be able to test people entering and exiting shelters by then. june 3: desantis announces that florida could move into phase 2 except south florida, specifically miami-dade, broward, and palm beach, which need to submit plans for reopening. phase 2 in florida begins, with bars allowed to open at 50% capacity with social distancing and sanitation. june 10: miami beach reopens with social distancing guidelines. june 14: an alternate website for tracking covid-19 cases in florida, created by rebekah jones, debuted. in an interview with npr, she claims that in the current florida health dashboard, positive tests are only counted once per person but a person who tests negative multiple times is counted towards the data every time. she states that reporting positivity as a percentage of total tests instead of as a percentage of the total population tested lowers the reported covid-19 positivity rate. june 16: hawkers st. pete restaurant in st. petersburg temporary shuts down until further notice due to a spike of cases in the city and pinellas county. an ice hockey game in the tampa bay metropolitan area led to 14 of the 22 players and a rink staff member testing positive for covid-19. june 19: a mandatory mask mandate goes into effect in tampa. it applies to all indoor locations outside of one's home and anywhere in public where one cannot maintain social distancing. those who are under the age of 2 are exempt from it. a mask mandate that applies to businesses in st. petersburg goes into effect. june 21: the dashboard created by rebekah jones says that "the doh "cases" include residents and non-residents, but exclude those who received positive anti-body test results". june 23: a 17-year old from lee county who attended a 100-person church function dies from covid-19. the teenager had been treated at home with azithromycin, hydroxychloroquine, and oxygen before being transferred to the golisano children's hospital then to the nicklaus children's hospital in miami. june 24: the daily positive test rate reaches 20%. new york, new jersey and connecticut impose 14-day quarantines on visitors from states with infection rates above a certain threshold, including florida. a study by scripps research institute reports that covid-19 may be mutating in florida, making the virus more likely to infect cells. during the month of june the seven day moving average of new covid-19 cases in florida increased nearly ten-fold, from 726 new cases per day on june 1 to 7,140 new cases on july 1, 2020. july 2: florida's department of health stated that test results starting july 2 would include antigen test results received from the state public health laboratory and commercial and hospital laboratories. july 3: an 11-year-old boy from miami-dade county dies from covid-19 complications, making him the youngest person in florida to die from covid-19. july 7: more than 40 florida hospitals maxed out or were nearing capacity of their intensive care unit beds. july 12: 15,299 new covid-19 cases are reported by the state, the highest daily amount during the pandemic. july 14: miami is declared the worst hit locale in the state by dr lilian abbo, chief of infection prevention at jackson health system. july 24: a longtime staffer of rep. vern buchanan died of the disease after being hospitalized 9 days previously. july 27: manatee county commissioners vote to approve an ordinance requiring masks to be worn inside private businesses. it does not apply to those who are under the age of 6 and with certain medical conditions. july 30: 253 deaths are reported, the highest daily count during the pandemic. between july 30 and august 5, many state-run test sites were closed due to hurricane isaías. test sites in some western counties not in the hurricane's path remained open but state-run sites in miami-dade, orange and other higher population eastern counties were closed until monday, august 3, with some sites reopening before the scheduled full reopening on wednesday, august 5. the interruption of full daily testing would lead to a dip in confirmed cases for several days. august 24: 52 nursing home residents at fair havens center in miami springs died during a covid-19 outbreak at the center. acting on five complaints against the center, florida's agency for health care administration (ahca) conducted in inspection that found numerous issues and the agency shut down new admissions to the center. a certified nursing assistant was infected at the center in april, her husband and son became infected, and her 33-year-old son died in may. september 1: the florida department of health and division of emergency management announced a severing of ties with quest diagnostics, after the private laboratory failed to report nearly 75,000 tests to the state before that day, including some tests from as far back as april. of the 7,643 positive cases reported on september 1, 3,870 were collected by quest between april 22 and august 27. september 24: governor desantis suggested a "bill of rights" to protect college students from being expelled for attending parties that violate their school's covid-19 rules. september 25: desantis issued an order that effectively nullified public health measures imposed by various local governments in florida to combat the spread of the virus. desantis's order prohibits local governments from imposing fines or shutting down businesses for violations of mask mandates. the order also allows restaurants to immediately reopen at full capacity and restricted local governments from ordering restaurants to operate at less than half-capacity. on november 24, amid an increase in the number of covid-19 cases and deaths in the state throughout the autumn, desantis extended this order. september 25: tallahassee police broke up a dozen large gatherings over the weekend. this included a party of more than 1,000 people near florida state university. over 1,400 positive cases had been identified at florida state between august 2 and september 26. september 25: in reaction to brutal break up a party near fsu, gov. ron desantis proposes college 'bill of rights' to party. september 27: manatee county commissioners vote to end a countywide mask mandate. september 28: dr. anthony fauci said that the decision to reopen bars and restaurants at 100% capacity, and to prohibit localities from limiting business capacity to less than 50% was "very concerning" and "really asking for trouble." september 29: governor desantis announced that the state will receive over six million rapid antigen tests for covid-19, which typically provide results within fifteen minutes. the tests will initially be made available to long-term and senior care facilities, with the intention to later expand to schools. the state expected the first shipment of tests arrive by october 2. a sharp rise in cases, with 3,259 reported, occurred that day, which followed 813 cases reported the day before, the lowest daily count in months. test positivity for the day was 4.98%; the day before was at 4.21%. second rise of cases (october 2020–january 2021) october 10, 2020: a daily report of test results was not provided. the florida department of health explained that results provided by helix laboratory on friday evening included nearly 400,000 previously submitted results. the department of health stated that the results would be provided by the next day, after the data was reconciled. october 12: florida reported a 13 percent increase over the past week in new cases. the total of 730,000 cases was about 1 case for every 29 floridians. october 14: the florida-lsu football game was postponed until december. a total of 19 players for the gators tested positive, as did coach dan mullen, who had urged that fans be allowed to pack the stadium. october 17: florida reported its highest coronavirus numbers in two months. the seven-day average was more than 3,300 cases. reporting anomalies made it more difficult to gather statistical trends. positivity rate was 5.2%, with over 2,000 hospitalizations. october 19: with tourist season approaching, rising cases were reported in the florida keys, with 201 cases in the past 14 days, and a 7% positive test rate. october 22: wuft reported that florida universities "have received scores of formal complaints from students about their own classmates' behavior during the pandemic," such as packing bars off campus and holding parties without masks or social distancing. governor desantis defended the practice of holding thanksgiving gatherings for the elderly in long-term care facilities, despite the potential health risks. october 23: florida reported 16,500 deaths, and moved past new jersey to become 4th in the nation in the number of deaths. october 24: a florida department of health official in orange county urged parents not to host birthday parties of any size, after half of the 30 attendees at an orlando area birthday party contracted the virus. december 7: florida department of law enforcement (fdle) agents raided the home of rebekah jones, a data scientist who was previously employed by the state and helped develop the state's covid-19 dashboard. december 14: united airlines flight 591 departed from orlando, florida with 164 people on board for a 5.5 hour flight to los angeles, california. a 69-year-old man had respiratory distress on the flight, was given cpr, and the flight was diverted to new orleans, louisiana. the man died at a hospital, and his cause of death was listed as "acute respiratory failure; covid-19". an emergency medical technician who performed the cpr later reported covid-19 symptoms but received three negative test results. two other passengers also took turns in performing chest compressions. a bag valve mask was used to provide oxygen, and there was no mouth-to-mouth resuscitation performed. december 17: the state of florida reported 13,148 new cases, largest since july 16. december 31: a confirmed case of the new sars-cov-2 variant from the united kingdom was reported in florida. the patient is a martin county man with no travel history. a woman receives the covid-19 vaccine on january 16, 2021, at the orange county convention center. january 6, 2021: the cdc announced that it had found at least 22 confirmed cases of the more contagious sars-cov-2 variant in florida. cases since january 2021 (february–august 2021) july 31: florida recorded 21,683 new cases in one day, the highest at any time in the pandemic. florida's test positivity rate reached 18.82%, driven by the delta variant of covid-19. august 6: the state continued to break records with 23,909 new cases on friday, august 6, according to the cdc. august 8: the pastor