As of July 15, 2020, the Trump administration issued an order demanding hospitals to report COVID-19 patient data directly to the Department of Health and Human Services, rather than the Center for Disease Control.

The White House claimed that the CDC’s collection and reporting system, which has historically been used for the collection of disease data, was too slow and ineffectual for COVID-19 reporting. CDC Director Robert Redfield has also asserted that the move would streamline data collection and reporting.

Other senior CDC officials, hospital epidemiologists, and Democrat Senators have raised concerns over the move, alleging that it puts the transparency and legitimacy of the reported numbers into question. It was considered especially alarming, as Trump previously said he asked officials to slow down testing to keep COVID-19 cases artificially low. The private company managing the new collection system, TeleTracking Technologies, Inc., was awarded the $10 million contract in a non-competitive bid.

The change came amid new record-breaking spikes in US COVID-19 cases. On the day of the change, the US totaled 3,621,637 cases and 140,155 deaths. The same week, the White House also blocked the CDC from testifying to Congress about school re-openings.

The New York Times – Trump Administration Strips C.D.C. of Control of Coronavirus Data
NPR – White House Strips CDC Of Data Collection Role For COVID-19 Hospitalizations
USA Today – Trump administration cuts CDC out of data collection on hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The move has immediate effect
Worldometer – Coronavirus, United States