The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) appears to have stopped disclosing the number of Americans tested for COVID-19 starting Monday, which has caused a backlash on social media, with people questioning the professionalism and accountability of the agency.
A CDC statement posted on Twitter said the reason it discontinued reporting the number of "persons under investigation" and negative tests results for COVID-19 is because "these numbers would not be representative of national testing," with more tests done on the state level.
A Democratic congressman has condemned the CDC for its "inexplicable" decision to stop publicly disclosing the number of Americans who have been tested for the novel coronavirus.
Images posted online show a table published on the CDC's website had, as of Sunday night, included numbers on the total confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19, as well as the statistics on how many tests had been administered and how many deaths had been attributed to the virus. By Monday, it appears that the agency had stopped disclosing the figures on the number of people tested and the death toll.
In a letter to CDC director Robert Redfield, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said, "Americans are dying. We deserve to know how many people have been tested for, or who have died from, COVID-19."
His letter cited a Twitter post by Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who said the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. could really be in the "hundreds or low thousands."
Pocan commented on Gottlieb, saying that "knowing that CDC testing is keeping pace with the likely number of cases is imperative to maintaining public trust."
Data on CDC website on Sunday
Data on CDC website on Monday
Meanwhile on Monday, it was reported that the CDC had also stopped disclosing the number of confirmed cases by states on the daily map of "States reporting cases of COVID-19 to CDC," replacing the number with the indicators of "Yes or No."
The function was restored on Wednesday as the screenshot shows below. It appears that the change of feature of the map was a temporary technical issue.