‘CONTENT NOT AVAILABLE’

CDC’s COVID Tracker Disappears Day After Trump Administration Takes Control of Case Data

The nation’s top authority on infectious disease control had been regularly publishing data on hospital capacity—but it’s disappeared.

U.S. coronavirus data that was available to the public has been stripped from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website, one day after the Trump administration took control of the information. On Wednesday, the administration ordered hospitals to bypass the CDC and send their COVID-19 patient information to a central database to be overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services. The CDC had been regularly publishing data on hospital capacity across the country—but, as of Thursday morning, that information is no longer available. CNBC reports that HHS spokesman Michael Caputo said in a statement to CNBC that the CDC has been ordered to make the data available again. “HHS is committed to being transparent with the American public about the information it is collecting on the coronavirus,” he said. “Therefore, HHS has directed CDC to re-establish the coronavirus dashboards it withdrew from the public on Wednesday.” The CDC has yet to comment.