According to reports, data that hospitals collect on coronavirus patients will now be redirected to the Trump administration instead of being sent first to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Starting Wednesday, hospitals were instructed to bypass the CDC and submit daily patient information directly to a central database operated by the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC
Michael R. Caputo, a spokesperson for Health and Human Services, told the New York Times, which first reported on the change, that “the fastest and most comprehensive new data system is what our nation needs to defeat the coronavirus, and the CDC, a division operation of HHS, will certainly participate in this simplified, government-wide response. They just won’t control it anymore. “
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“Today, the CDC still has at least a week’s delay in reporting hospital data,” Caputo said in a statement. “The United States requires it in real time.”
The data will be used to inform decisions at the federal level, including the allocation of personal protective equipment, the redeployment of medications and other supplies, treatments and resources, according to a document on the Health and Human Services website.
Critics say the change will hinder the work of medical researchers, modelers, and officials because, unlike the coronavirus data released by the CDC, the data stored by Health and Human Services will not be easily accessible to the public. Caputo said the CDC data will still be made public.
In an opinion piece published Tuesday in the Washington Post, four former CDC directors, who served during the Republican and Democratic administrations, accused President Trump and top officials of the coronavirus task force of politicizing the scientific data published by the national institute of public health.
“We cannot recall our collective tenure once when political pressure led to a change in the interpretation of scientific evidence,” they wrote, alleging that public health experts now “face two opponents: covid-19, but also political leaders. and others trying to undermine “the CDC.
An overview of the Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia on April 23, 2020. (Photo by Tami Chappell / AFP via Getty Images)
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“Unfortunately, their sound science is being challenged with partial fire, sowing confusion and mistrust at a time when the American people need leadership, experience and clarity,” the opinion piece said. “These efforts have even fueled a backlash against public health officials across the country: Public servants have been harassed, threatened, and forced to resign when we need them most. This is outsized and dangerous.”
The opinion piece was written by Drs. Tom Frieden, Jeffrey Koplan, David Satcher, and Richard Besser.
This comes as Trump pressures children to return to classrooms this fall, accusing Democrats of advocating keeping public schools online to harm their reelection chances.
Despite pressure from the president, current CDC chief Dr. Robert Redfield said Thursday that the federal public health institute will not review coronavirus recommendations to reopen schools and stated, “Our guidelines are our guidelines. “
The agency said there are steps schools can take to safely reopen, but that “it cannot provide unique criteria for opening and closing schools or changing the way schools operate.” Documents obtained by The Associated Press stated that “Decisions on how to open and manage schools safely must be made based on local needs and conditions. They also included a checklist to encourage parents to carefully consider whether they should send their children to school in person or seek virtual instruction.
California’s two largest public school systems said Monday that classes will be online after the summer break, citing “breakneck infection rates.” a plan to return students to the classroom part-time.
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday that schools authorized to reopen for in-person instruction in the state should be in an area that maintains a daily infection rate of less than 5 percent, based on a 14-day average over a sustained period. He said the final decision on the reopening will come the first week of August, adding that he will not use “our children as guinea pigs.”
Associated Press contributed to this report.
