Trump’s coronavirus coverup has begun as without warning the White House scrubbed all virus statistical data from the CDC website.
Previously public data has already disappeared from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website after the Trump administration quietly shifted control of the information to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Since the pandemic began, the CDC regularly published data on availability of hospital beds and intensive care units across the country. But Ryan Panchadsaram, who helps run a data-tracking site called Covid Exit Strategy, said that when he tried to collect the data from the CDC on Tuesday, it had disappeared.
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“We were surprised because the modules that we normally go to were empty. The data wasn’t available and not there,” he said. “There was no warning.”
Here is what the CDC Hospital Capacity Dashboard looks like now:
I had hoped it was a glitch, but no…The @CDCgov hospital capacity dashboard has gone dark. @CDCDirector has said CDC still has access to the data but apparently the public no longer does. pic.twitter.com/FyRt7YHvKc
— Charles Ornstein (@charlesornstein) July 16, 2020
Trump has gone from failed efforts to pretend like the pandemic doesn’t exist to actively suppressing the data that health experts need to track the virus and treat outbreaks. The United States is only averaging 600,000 tests a day when the number required is 3 million. There is a woeful lack of contact tracing, and now there will be no ability to track outbreaks.
If Trump can’t beat the virus, he is going to hide the data so that it looks like the pandemic is over. More Americans will get sick and die, and their blood will be on Trump’s hands because he put trying to win an election ahead of public health.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association