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Local health officials: data move will have little effect here

Daily Independent - 7/19/2020

Jul. 19--GREENUP -- The re-routing by the federal government this week of COVID-19 data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is unlikely to have much effect on local health departments, two area health department officials said.

The data reported by the Greenup County Health Department comes from hospitals and entities that are testing for the virus, county health director Chris Crum said. From there it goes to the CDC. "It's not like the CDC is being cut out of the loop," he said.

"This is not expected to have any expected effect on our ability to obtain or use data," Ashland-Boyd County Health Department emergency preparedness coordinator Matthew Anderson wrote in an email to a reporter.

The Trump administration last Tuesday ordered hospitals to send their virus data to the health and human services department rather than the CDC, raising alarm among many public health officials that the data would not be readily available to the public and the medical community.

Data reported by hospitals include the number of virus patients admitted and numbers of hospital beds, ventilators and personal protective equipment available.

With the re-routing of the data to HHC, the CDC may be unable to provide up-to-date information, some public health experts say.

The order also briefly resulted in removal of a hospital capacity chart on the CDC's website, but the chart was restored a day later. However, it may not continue to be updated now that the CDC no longer receives the information.

The CDC will continue to have access to the same data, Crum said. "How it's used is up to the agency."

The Daily Independent asked for comment from King's Daughters Medical Center and Southern Ohio Medical Center. A KDMC spokesman was unable to provide any comment from hospital officials and an SOMC spokeswoman did not return a call.

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