Organizations Call for Reversal of Administration Policy Bypassing CDC with COVID-19 Data

More than 100 public health, science, research and medical organizations are urging the White House  to reverse a new policy that would divert COVID-19 patient data collection from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a letter sent Friday to administration COVID-19 Task Force leaders Vice President Mike Pence and Amb. Deborah Birx, the groups note that collecting, validating and reporting public health data is a core function of the CDC. Bypassing the agency, the signers write, threatens the quality and reliability of information that is essential to curtailing the pandemic’s impacts in the United States. The organizations call on the administration instead to keep public health data open and accessible and to invest in enhanced CDC data collection. The letter was led by the Infectious Diseases Society of America and its HIV Medicine Association with the American Public Health Association and the American Society for Microbiology.