The Independent View: White House Instructing Governors to Send National Guard to Oversee Hospitals Data on COVID-19

President Trump continues to insist that the growing surge of COVID-19 Cases, including Overrun Hospitals and Rising Deaths, is somehow the Fault of more Testing.

In a Letter to go out this week, Trump will ask Governors to “consider” sending the National Guard to Hospitals to “help improve data collection.”

As the President of the American Hospital Association states, this “makes no sense.” If the National Guard is going to take a more Active Role in handling the Coronavirus Pandemic, Double-Checking Hospital Data does Not really seem like the best use of their Skills and Abilities.

If the whole idea isn’t suspicious enough to begin with, this Plan coincides with a New Directive that Eliminates sending Data to the CDC. Instead, Data will be sent through State Agencies and Federal Contractors to New Central Federal Reporting from The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The idea of using the National Guard for Data Review has apparently come up a number of times in the last few weeks. That includes at Meetings between Hospital Leaders and the White House in both June and July.

Hospital Officials Ignored the idea because “it’s silly.” But not everyone let the idea slip so easily, One Industry Official called the Discussion “an offhand threat,” directed at Hospitals White House Coronavirus Task Force response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx.

Birx Complained that Hospitals were Not properly Reporting Data, while Hospital Officials said that it was HHS that had Issues with Not Reporting the Data.

While the Current Draft of the Letter to Governors asks them to consider using the National Guard, an Earlier Draft Directed them to Deploy the Guard to Oversee Hospital Data.

However, there is little doubt that no matter which Verb is deployed in the Final Draft, Governors eager to please Trump will Treat this as a Command.

That means that Clerks in Hospitals in the States which are right now at the Center of the Spike in New Cases are likely to find Someone in Uniform looking over their shoulders as they Report Information on Cases and Deaths, to make sure that they’re doing it Right.