The D.C. Department of Health (DOH) supposedly fired a contact tracer for exposing the agency for not paying workers overtime in a tweet.
A Twitter user, who says they worked for D.C.’s DOH, detailed how contact tracers were only offered compensatory time for their 12-hour shifts. After they posted the tweet, they say the department promptly fired them on Monday. Support poured in from the internet.
“DC Dept. of Health didn’t approve overtime for their Contact Tracers. They asked us to work a twelve hour shift today and only offered us comp time,” they tweeted.
It was a response to a tweet that said police officers in the area had earned $900,000 in overtime in the previous year.
She later posted that the DOH fired them for the tweet.
“I just got terminated for this tweet so any help would be great. Cashapp: $shanaeem,” she tweeted.
Internet supporters kicked into gear as the user later thanked her followers for the help.
“okay, wow thank you all for the support so far. I had no idea this would reach so many people,” they tweeted. “I plan on making a thread documenting my time as a CT, including when I got covid and was contact traced myself. In the meantime, I’ll be resting and making sure I get paid.”
The Twitter user did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Dot.
D.C.’s DOH was not the only one to come under fire on the internet this week.
This story arose after Florida’s DOH made news. A recently fired data scientist, Rebekah Jones, who called out the state’s DOH for inaccurate COVID-19 numbers posted a video of her house being raided by police on Monday.
The police officers held firearms up to the woman, her husband, and her children. Then, they took her computer hardware.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement says the computer was taken in relation to a recent hacking event.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken heat for the treatment of Jones. GOP lawyer Ron Filipkowski, who served on the 12th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission as an appointee by DeSantis, quit in light of the video. The panel picks judges like the one who approved of the warrant to raid Jones’ house.
“The recent events regarding public access to truthful data on the pandemic, and the specific treatment of Rebekah Jones has made the issue a legal one rather than just medical,’’ he wrote in a letter according to the Tampa Bay Times.
