The CDC and four U.S. health departments declined to speak with Nature about their COVID-19 data management processes, but four former science employees and researchers that collaborated with the organizations offered suggestions about why data is lacking and lagging across the country.
Here are three reasons why the U.S. is having a “coronavirus data crisis,” according to the report.
1. Political interference. Some guess that since the pandemic is politically charged, Trump administration officials closely guard data on the situation. Investigations published in the CDC’s journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports have been in depth; however, the reports are published online too late to influence any outcomes, researchers said.
2. Disorganization. In July, the Trump administration announced that hospital COVID-19 data would switch from the CDC’s management to HHS’ new reporting system. Rather than streamlining the reporting process, the change has instead increased disorganization as some hospital administrators are now confused about which agencies to report to, according to American Public Health Association executive director Georges Benjamin, MD.
3. Longstanding neglect of public health data management. The $10 million used for HHS’ new reporting system may have been better applied to improving public health data management at CDC and the health departments the agency collaborates with across the U.S., Dr. Benjamin said. The APHA and other scientific organizations have called for resources to improve data surveillance in the U.S., and in a report from September 2019, epidemiologists described the current system as “siloed, sluggish, manual and paper-based.”
“We’ve begged for money over the years to build a solid information highway so that we can collect data rapidly and share it with the people that need it in a timely way,” Dr. Benjamin said. “But we’ve never gotten what we needed.”
Click here to view the full report.
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