By Isabella Sab.
On Wednesday, July 15, the Trump Administration silently redirected medical information involving Covid-19 patients from the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network to a central, private database overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services. This sudden change of direction caused public information posted on the CDC’s website to be swiped clean, and monitored under the watchful eye of the Trump Administration; thus, causing uncertainty and questions regarding the transparency of the data, and the idea of politicizing it.
Ever since the start of the global pandemic, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) was always the central network where hospitals all over America were able to send in data regarding patients of Covid-19; to be published on the CDC’s website so that other doctors and people can learn more about the virus and the symptoms that coincide with it. However, as time goes on with the pandemic, members of the Trump Administration including Michael R. Caputo, a spokesman for the HHS, felt that having control over Covid-19 data gathered by the CDC under one system would be the best for them and the White House coronavirus task force, “Today, the C.D.C. still has at least a week lag in reporting hospital data,” Mr. Caputo said. “America requires it in real-time. The new, faster, and complete data system is what our nation needs to defeat the coronavirus, and the C.D.C., an operating division of H.H.S., will certainly participate in this streamlined all-of-government response. They will simply no longer control it.”(New York Times).
In the eyes of the Trump Administration, having the CDC's data link to their system would help streamline data in a faster, more adequate way that can keep up with the changes of the pandemic. But, with this swift decision, many people are raising the question if the government would be transparent and politicized the data; and if the CDC is going to be involved with future processes with the pandemic. By redirecting control over to the government, the future of science data is up in the air, as people are asking, will the government continue to get involved with organizations like CDC, and will these organizations be allowed to publish data without the monitorization of the government?
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