> The administration orders hospitals to bypass the C.D.C. with key virus data, alarming health experts.
The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and, beginning on Wednesday, send all coronavirus patient information to a central database in Washington — a move that has alarmed public health experts who fear the data will be distorted for political gain.
That seems worrisome.
HOUSTON — Houston hospitals have been forced to treat hundreds of COVID-19 patients in their emergency rooms — sometimes for several hours or multiple days — as they scramble to open additional intensive care beds for the wave of seriously ill people streaming through their doors, according to internal numbers shared with NBC News and ProPublica.
At the same time, the region’s 12 busiest hospitals are increasingly telling emergency responders that they cannot safely accept new patients, at a rate nearly three times that of a year ago, according to data reviewed by reporters.
The increase in ambulance diversions, coupled with the spike in patients being held indefinitely in emergency rooms, are the latest indicators that Houston hospitals are straining to keep up with a surge of new coronavirus patients. ProPublica and NBC News have previously reported that a public hospital in Houston ran out of a medication to treat COVID-19 patients and that a spike in at-home deaths from cardiac arrest suggests that the death toll from the coronavirus may be higher than official statistics show.
On Thursday, 3,812 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the region, including more than 1,000 in intensive care units, a record since the pandemic began. At the same time, since Texas officials have not issued another stay-at-home order to slow the virus’s spread, hospitals are also still seeing a steady flow of patients in need of care as a result of car accidents, violent crime and heat-related medical emergencies.
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We definitely can’t let the CDC get hold of those statistics.
You maskless mainland marauders will have to put your Hawaii trip on hold until at least 1 September now. Unless you want a 14 day quarantine. Don’t think you can step out either. Our Aloha includes a felony charge and hefty fine for leaving your room.
13,462,868 total cases
581,317 dead
7,851,603 recovered
In the US:
3,545,077 total cases
139,143 dead
1,600,195 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Snowboarder_Bo, thank you for providing the daily tracking. It’s been helpful. I see on the website you linked to that one of the Johns Hopkins sources for info is the CDC. I’m wondering if that will continue now that hospitals will be reporting case numbers directly to the Trump administration, not the CDC.
Do hospitals report to more than one source? If not, I’m assuming the WHO, Worldometer, etc. got their numbers from the CDC, and with the switch, I’m wondering how accurate those numbers will be. (Trying not to be political but impossible to avoid in this case.)
I’m not wondering at all.
Yeah, I’m not, either. I was trying too hard to avoid being political.
Further question: is there any work-around, or are we doomed to inaccurate numbers and the inevitable loss of human lives those fake numbers will cost?
Is there any reason why hospitals can’t report to additional sources? At least in Illinois they seem to be reporting to the state - what’s to prevent the CDC, or another national or international NGO, from compiling the data the same way the CDC has been doing?
I believe hospitals are being order to report directly to the White House instead of to the CDC. That means that information will be filtered through the White House, then perhaps given to the CDC.
The question is: can the give the information to only the White House? Or can they give the information to the White House and to other people/institutions?
They are clearly giving information to other institutions as well, or my state (and presumably most, if not all others) wouldn’t have a whole dashboard of it, with graphs and all.
Earlier this morning, Kevin Stitt officially announced during a hastily organized health department Zoom call that he has indeed tested positive for COVID-19.
Stitt was in attendance at the recent political rally in Tulsa.
State and county health departments have various reporting requirements. Hospitals and doctors are required to report certain disaeases and conditions to the agency. The White House, and for that matter, any federal agency, cannot override or prevent these reports. I expect COVID-19 has been added to the list of required reports by just about every state.
AIUI, the Worldometer page collects its numbers from the state or county pages and not the CDC’s.
The law on reporting of infectious diseases varies by state, but most states require clinicians and laboratories to report infectious diseases to the state or local health authority.
The state then reports to the CDC. There are other reports that go direct to the CDC, but not, in the main, reports of infectious disease.
Any requirement that states report to the CDC would be a federal regulation. I don’t know what the states will do. The CDC is a federal agency: they could redirect all reports to the White House: I don’t know what the CDC will do.
My knowledge is old. It could have all changed.
I think this is appropriate as breaking news:
It makes sense- 12 of the 18 bands scheduled have cancelled, the only way to build floats consisting of thousands of fresh flowers is to get thousands of volunteers working over a short period of time just before the day of the parade, and it isn’t looking like spectators would be allowed (now that would be an eerie television viewing experience).
I’ve just had a look at the HHS Guidance for Hospital Reporting, and what the HHS has done is replace the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) reporting with “Teletracking” reporting.
The “safety” network was originally the system that monitored the 'safety" of hospitals – they reported to the CDC infections that people acquired while in hospital. I don’t know how that had grown and developed over the years. The new system monitors hospital utilization and particularly COVID-19, which, at least in theory, is something quite different to the original aim of the NHSN.
It may be that the old system wasn’t really fit for the new purpose, or it may be that they noticed that hospital utilization wasn’t really a CDC task, and/or it may be all political – I don’t know.
At the risk of getting political here, I wonder if the states’ responses to the CDC vs HHS directive will depend on the prevailing slant of the politics in each state.
States that are handling the pandemic responsibly might continue to report to CDC in addition to HHS. States that are handling the pandemic irresponsibly might report only to HHS as directed and stop reporting to CDC. That would render the CDC statistics spotty and unreliable.
Thank you for the kind words. It’s been over 4 months now that I’ve been posting them and I’ll be honest, it isn’t always easy for me to do. And I’m not sure how long I’ll want to continue, because “forever” is just too long.
But I’ll continue as long as I can stand it; I think it’s reasonably important to maintain this record of events and how people have reacted to them. I doubt there is any other long-running journal such as this one anywhere on the internet, in fact.
Knowing that others appreciate the effort certainly helps me grit my teeth, prop open my sleepy eyelids and copy & paste. 
ETA: A belated thank you to everyone for your consideration and for your participation in this thread; this goes both ways, eh.
13,694,593 total cases
586,845 dead
8,149,634 recovered
In the US:
3,616,747 total cases
140,140 dead
1,645,962 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison: