It’s probably worse than we know because many states covered up Covid deaths. Politicians and hospitals didn’t want it to look like they were failing. Suspiciously, other causes of death (like pneumonia or heart disease) mysteriously spiked during the pandemic.
Florida did accounting trickery to try and downplay Covid deaths. If the persons primary residence was outside Florida they wouldn’t add it to the Covid totals. Then they tried to punish the health department workers who blew the whistle.
They didn’t “try to punish” her. They fired her after she blew the whistle on some sketchy pandemic data shit, and then DeSantis had a SWAT team raid and threaten her family in their own home. That’s a real thing that happened. It’s a matter of public record.