Inaccurate data may have led to policy decisions—like mask mandates and school closures—that were harmful to children

Washington, D.C. — House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Health Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA), on behalf of the Health and Oversight Republicans, wrote to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Mandy Cohen. The letter requests documents and information related to the CDC’s continued dissemination and reliance on COVID tracker data, which may contain inaccurate numbers.

KEY EXCERPT: 

“The CDC’s responses are consistent with concerns reported in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and raised by other analysts. On March 15, 2022, the CDC removed 72,277 deaths, including those of 416 children, from its COVID-19 Data Tracker after the overestimates were attributed to ‘coding logic errors’ The inaccuracies were detected by Kelly Krohnert, a former IT programmer from Atlanta, Georgia, on February 23, 2022. She tweeted: ‘It appears [CDC’s COVID] Data Tracker has major issues when it comes to pediatric death reporting. We deserve accurate data when so much is on the line for our kids!’ Krohnert and another mother had been writing to the CDC since May 2020 about these concerns. The overcounting also raises questions about whether CDC used inaccurate data that led to decisions harmful to children.”

BACKGROUND:

• The CDC has provided the House Energy and Commerce Committee with inconsistent data regarding deaths in children ages 0-17 due to COVID. 
• On August 7, 2023, CDC told the Committee that 2,292 children had died of COVID-19 based on COVID tracker data—no longer used since the end of the COVID public health emergency in May. 
• In response to a follow up question regarding the number of child deaths were in the National Vital Statistics System, the CDC replied that 1,696 children have died from COVID-19 in a timeframe that was two months longer.
• The NVSS data based on death certificates is considered by CDC to be more authoritative. 
• Overcounting child deaths by at least 35 percent is a massive discrepancy in reporting.

The Chairs requested the following by November 7, 2023.

1. All documents related to CDC assessments of the accuracy of COVID tracker data since January 1, 2020. 
2. All documents related to the CDC’s decision to disseminate COVID tracker data for COVID mortality data after the public health emergency was ended, given CDC’s admission that NVSS provides “the most complete and accurate information on all deaths in the United States.” 
3. All documents related to CDC assessments of the accuracy of NVSS data since January 1, 2020. 
4. All documents related to CDC analyses of child COVID deaths since January 1, 2020. 
5.  All documents related to CDC decisions that relied on child COVID death data from the COVID Data Tracker.
6. All documents related to CDC plans to improve data quality since August 1, 2022. 

CLICK HERE to read the full letter.