This system — called the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System Base System, or NBS — helps public health departments track and investigate reportable disease data and share that information with the CDC for a nationwide view to prevent and monitor diseases.
The CDC launched the system in 2003. More recently, the need for an overhaul became clear during the coronavirus pandemic, when this and other public health systems collapsed under the strain of the crisis.
Now, the modernization of this particular 20-year-old system is likely stalled if not over, said Itir Cole, a former employee at what used to be the U.S. Digital Service. Until recently, Cole was a portfolio lead for that team’s work with the CDC.
President Trump remade USDS into the government-slashing Department of Government Efficiency effort on day one of his second term. Cole resigned last month because she didn’t want to work for billionaire Elon Musk or DOGE.
The team of USDS and CDC employees working on the surveillance system has shrunk from around 20 people to a handful, according to Cole, as the CDC fired probationary employees, and people in the seven-person USDS contingent at the CDC were dismissed or resigned, she said. The group had finished developing the modernized system and was goi ..
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