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Beginning today (July 15), President Donald Trump’s administration is ordering hospitals to report their COVID-19 patient information directly to a new database managed by the Department of Health and Human Services, effectively cutting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention out of the flow of data. In order to force a timely compliance, a letter sent by the administration to state governors this week recommended deploying of the National Guard to collect the data themselves.
While federal officials say the new guidelines will make data reporting more streamlined and centralized, opponents claim that the move sidelines the nation’s main public health agency even as cases continue to rise. In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently makes much of its data freely available, a boon for the many groups using this information to populate their disease models and direct their work. Health and ...
