Feds’ CDC cutout proves short-lived
Outcry leads data to be restored online
Massachusetts officials and health experts voiced concern over a recent move brought on by the Trump administration to funnel coronavirus hospital data to a private technology firm rather than the Centers for Disease Control, a policy that was quickly revised following public outcry.
“As this virus has continued to grow around the country, it’s more important than ever that the CDC be able to produce what I would describe as a daily statement on truth, with regards to hospitalization, cases, ICU utilization and all the rest,” Gov. Charlie Baker said during a Thursday press conference.
Last week, a memo from Health and Human Services outlined guidelines that asked hospitals to redirect daily reporting of a range of data to TeleTracking Technologies, based in Pittsburgh, instead of the Centers for Disease Control.
As of Thursday afternoon, some hospital data on the CDC website had not been updated since Tuesday, and the site directed visitors to the HHS memo for more information.
The change in data reporting caught the attention of local officials, such as U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who took aim at the Trump administration in a Thursday statement saying, “This shameful and transparent attempt to hide its incompetence and further politicize this pandemic is dangerous and will only result in putting more lives at risk.”
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren also chimed in on Twitter, writing on Wednesday, “I’m concerned this is an attempt to politicize the federal response and cover up failures.”
The Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association said in a statement, “Considering the new and significant administrative burden posed by the U.S. Health and Human Services requirements, we hope to learn more about how this data will be used and shared.”
But in a Wednesday media call, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said the change in data collection is simply to streamline reporting.
He said, “The new infrastructure we have now actually provides our CDC team with easier access to a much broader variety of data sets than they would have without it.”
The blow from the controversy surrounding the new rule was softened Thursday afternoon, when a statement from Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Michael Caputo said HHS directed the CDC to re-establish the dashboards it had taken down.
“Going forward, HHS and CDC will deliver more powerful insights on the coronavirus,” Caputo said in the statement.
Sam Scarpino, assistant professor in the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University said that in addition to hospitals, the data collection changes could also impact state and local health agencies.
“I certainly don’t think the White House should be interfering in CDC operations, especially when it comes to collecting, processing and analyzing public health data in a pandemic,” said Scarpino.
Dr. David Hamer, professor of global health and medicine at Boston University and a physician at Boston Medical Center, said, “The important thing about this is that the dashboard through the CDC needs to be public.”
He added, “That’s such an important asset for modelers at the national level and state level to track the epidemics.”