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Short Wave

The Controversy Around COVID-19 Hospital Data

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.76K Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2020

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Data are so more than just a bunch of numbers, especially when it's the data hospitals are reporting about COVID-19. Earlier this month, the Trump Administration made a sudden change to the way that information is shared. The process bypasses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, raising concern among some public health officials. NPR's Pien Huang explains the recent controversy, and why the way COVID-19 hospital data are reported is such a big deal.

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

0:05.0

Maddie, if I hear with global health and development reporter Ping Huang,

0:09.2

hey Ping. Hey Maddie, how you doing? I mean that's a rude question I think you

0:13.4

know that right now but what have you got for me today Ping? Well Maddie I'm

0:19.0

here today to talk about data. Oh so just you know the way we observe and

0:24.4

measure the great mysteries of the universe? LOL yes. I totally agree with you

0:29.9

you. You know Maddie data are so much more important than just a bunch of

0:34.2

numbers and in this case Maddie the data I want to talk about is particularly

0:38.3

important. It's the data that hospitals have been reporting about COVID-19. So

0:42.4

we're talking stuff about number of cases, how many hospital beds are available,

0:46.1

how much PPE they have, that kind of stuff. Yeah exactly and a couple of weeks

0:50.6

ago the Trump administration made a pretty big change to the way that hospitals

0:54.2

report that data. Information on COVID-19 cases and hospitals will no longer go

0:59.0

directly to the CDC. All of this has been pretty controversial. The move made by

1:04.2

the Trump administration is raising concerns from health experts. Some say it's

1:08.0

part of a bigger fight between politics and science. So today on the show the

1:13.0

controversy around COVID-19 hospital data and why the way that information is

1:18.4

reported is such a big deal. This is shortwave and PR's daily science podcast.

1:29.2

Okay, ping. Let's walk through the chronology of what happened over the last

1:40.5

couple of weeks. So on July 15th the Trump administration super abruptly

1:46.2

changed the way that hospitals were mandated to report their COVID-19 data.

1:50.4

Again this is the stuff like you know number of cases available beds whether or

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