5. The CDC Refused to Collect Hospitalization Data. One of the themes throughout the pandemic is that the CDC was mired in antiquated ways of doing things. This was perfectly exemplified in how the agency sought to collect hospitalization data. The CDC wanted to use its influenza model to estimate hospitalizations, which involves sampling roughly a sixth of the nation’s hospitals and extrapolating out to the rest. White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx suggested that the CDC should instead have all hospitals simply report the actual numbers, and directed funds so the agency could modernize its data collection process. The CDC insisted this would be impractical, and turned the money down.

Birx eventually went around the CDC, having all hospitals report hospitalizations to Health and Human Services via an online portal. Data soon started pouring in, but the CDC declined to work with it, worrying that they couldn’t trust it. To be fair, there were initial inconsistencies, but by October 2020, they had been ironed out, and the U.S. now had accurate, precise hospitalization data to guide key measures like distribution of treatments and deployment of personnel.