The Trump administration on Tuesday forced all hospitals and states to make a significant and immediate change in how they report coronavirus patient data, hijacking the information to be funneled into the Dept. of Health and Human Services.
Experts warned the move could allow the administration to politicize the data, hide it, be less transparent, all of which interferes in the real-time usage of information to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
That appears to be what has happened.
“Previously public data has already disappeared from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website,” CNBC reports.
“Dashboards last updated as of July 14, 2020,” reads the CDC’s website where information on availability of hospital and ICU beds used to appear.
Early into the coronavirus pandemic the CDC removed information on the number of COVID-19 tests performed when it became clear the numbers were unacceptably small.