Hospitals from across the country will no longer send CCP virus or COVID-19 related data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and are instead required to send it to a central database in Washington beginning July 15, according to an HHS statement released Friday.
HHS said Vice President Mike Pence sent a letter to hospital administrators across the country asking them to send daily pandemic data on “testing, capacity, utilization, and patient flow” to the federal government.
The federal agency said it needs daily information to help in planning, monitoring, and allocating resources during the current public health emergency.
“This data will be used to inform decisions at the federal level, such as allocation of supplies, treatments, and other resources,” said the HHS.
The federal administration said the central database will let it move away from the manual entry process toward an automated one and reduce its data collection burdens.
“We will no longer be sending out one-time requests for data to aid in the distribution of Remdesivir or any other treatments or supplies. This daily reporting is the only mechanism used for the distribution calculations, and the [data] is needed daily to ensure accurate calculations,” said the HHS.
The federal government said since the state governments are already collecting data from the hospitals, they may like to continue doing that.
“Therefore, hospitals may be relieved from reporting directly to the Federal Government if they receive a written release from the State stating that the State will collect the data from the hospitals and take over Federal reporting responsibilities,” said the HHS.
The hospitals reported to send data daily to the central database at Washington include critical access hospitals, children’s hospitals, general hospitals (including acute, trauma, and teaching hospitals), long term acute care hospitals, military hospitals, oncology hospitals, orthopedic hospitals, pediatric long term acute care hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, rehabilitation hospitals, surgical hospitals, Veterans Administration hospitals, women’s hospitals, and women’s and children’s hospitals.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the CDC about its coordination with the HHS on the matter and about how it'll get the data it needs for its daily operations but has yet to receive a response.
