The Biden administration plans to move the federal public health data tracking system back to the CDC following the Trump administration's shift in July 2020, Bloomberg reported Oct. 14.
HHS altered hospitals' COVID-19 data reporting protocols July 15, 2020; under the change, hospitals were required to send information— including capacity, inpatient bed and ICU bed occupancy rates — directly to the state or state contractor, which would send the data to HHS instead of hospitals reporting it to the CDC. At the time, an HHS spokesperson told the New York Times the agency made the switch because HHS' new data tracking system is faster and would avoid lag times that the CDC's system had been experiencing.
HHS signed off on a recommendation Oct. 1 to move the data tracking system out of its CIO office's management and back under CDC oversight, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg.
The change back to CDC management is intended to support long-term custody and stability of the data system, Kaiser Health News reported Oct. 15.