On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump’s order will force US Hospitals to bypass the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and send entire data of infected patients with Covid-19 to the Trump administration. The US federal government has confirmed the change in policy during the coronavirus epidemic. The Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs in the HHS (Health and Human Services) Michael Caputo issued a press statement. He said the new process would lead to faster and correct reporting of hospital data across the country. The new order will force not to send data on coronavirus patients to the National Health Care Safety Network Site. The site has tracked the outbreak since it officially started in the US earlier this year.
Moreover, the American 25,000 medical facilities will instead report to a singular database in Washington. The Washington Post also reported that Trump administration has urged governors to call in the US National Guard, in order to gain access to that critical data on a daily basis. Infectious disease experts quickly spoke out against the developments, including (President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America) Dr. Thomas File. He said in a statement, “Placing medical data collection outside of the leadership of public health experts could severely weaken the quality and availability of data, add an additional burden to already overwhelmed hospitals and add a new challenge to the US pandemic response”.
The news followed weeks of contentious debate on Capitol Hill over the administration’s response to the epidemic, as the White House urged schools to resume in the fall for in-person classes and called for states to begin reopening, despite a spike in new cases from coast to coast. President Trump has reportedly urged officials to slow down testing for the novel virus in the United States. He insisted that more testing leads to more cases. Trump said himself in late June at a rally, “I said to my people, slow the testing down please”. He later said that he was not kidding, telling reporters, and said, “I don’t kid, let me just tell you, let me make it clear by having more tests, we have more cases”. Point to be noted that at least 3.48 million Americans have contracted Covid-19 and a reported 138,000 people in the US have died due to coronavirus.