SYSTEM ERROR

Health and Human Services Blames Email Glitch for Slow Response to Coronavirus

An email outage reportedly delayed communication by as much as 11 hours.

A system crash of the email server used by the Department of Health and Human Services’ secretary’s office in February is being blamed for the agency’s slow response to the novel coronavirus. Politico reports the glitch happened on Feb. 23, just as the Trump administration was hammering out an emergency funding package. Emails that day were delayed by as much as 11 hours after an email test sent out by the team at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services tripped the system—just as the health officials were negotiating with the White House over a coronavirus funding plan. The snafu is the latest headache for the department, which has reported a series of tech breakdowns for more than a year. HHS has since removed the Medicare agency’s control over its own email operations and launched an audit of its entire IT infrastructure.