Hospitals told to send coronavirus data to Washington, not CDC

"The new faster and complete data system is what our nation needs to defeat the coronavirus," Department of Health and Human Services official says.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will "no longer control" the coronavirus data collection system from hospitals across the nation, a spokesman for U.S. Health and Human Services confirmed Tuesday night.

The New York Times reported earlier Tuesday that the administration had ordered hospitals to bypass the CDC and send all COVID-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning Wednesday, raising concerns from health experts that it will be politicized or withheld from the public.

Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement to NBC News that it would be a faster system.

He said that the CDC has about a one-week lag in reporting hospital data.

"The new faster and complete data system is what our nation needs to defeat the coronavirus and the CDC, an operating division of HHS, will certainly participate in this streamlined all-of-government response," Caputo said. "They will simply no longer control it," he said.

The Times reported that the HHS database that will receive new information is not open to the public, which could affect researchers, modelers and health officials who rely on CDC data to make projections and decisions.

Caputo told The Times that the CDC would still make data public.