The US Government has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and send all COVID-19 patient information to a database in Washington, which is worrying experts.
The Department of Health and Human Services will now receive the daily reports about patients, hospital capacity and other vital information from hospitals across the United States, USA Today reported.
Experts are worried that the change is "politicising" the pandemic and will prevent journalists and the public from getting vital information.
"Historically, CDC has been the place where public health data has been sent, and this raises questions about not just access for researchers but access for reporters, access for the public to try to better understand what is happening with the outbreak," said Jen Kates, the director of global health and HIV policy with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
"How will the data be protected?" she asked. "Will there be transparency, will there be access, and what is the role of the CDC in understanding the data?"
The president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America Dr Thomas File called the news "troubling".
"Reports that the administration has established a procedure that would remove the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a recipient of data on patients hospitalised with COVID-19 are troubling and, if implemented, will undermine our nation’s public health experts," he said in a statement.
"Placing medical data collection outside of the leadership of public health experts could severely weaken the quality and availability of data, add an additional burden to already overwhelmed hospitals and add a new challenge to the US pandemic response."
Former US Surgeon General David Satcher called the sidelining of the agency "very scary".
"There is conflict right now between the CDC and the White House," he said. "Somehow we’ve got to get past the conflict in the interest of saving lives."
But the director of the CDC Dr Robert Redfield said the new process was not "taking access or data away" from them.
"We've merely streamlined data collection for hospitals on the front lines," he said.
"We at CDC know that the lifeblood of public health is data.
"Collecting, disseminating data as rapidly as possible is our priority and the reason for the policy change we’re discussing today."
The new database requirements are expected to be implemented from Thursday.
