This week, my Health Subcommittee held a hearing entitled, "Empowered by Data: Legislation to Advance Equity and Public Health." The gap in our public health infrastructure was highlighted in a very serious way during the Covid19 pandemic as public health officials worked to crush the virus and families needed information to protect their loved ones.
My critical bill, the Ensuring Transparent Honest Information on COVID-19 (ETHIC) Act would require reporting of COVID-19 data from States, localities, Tribes and territories to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and give the Department of Health and Human Services the tools needed to improve national public health data systems. In Florida, we have seen a troubling pattern of withholding or censoring data regarding nursing home infections and deaths, overall mortality data and more throughout the pandemic. It is dangerous to hide valuable information or cause confusion in health data reporting, and we are working in Congress to ensure that this does not happen again.