The Trump administration awarded Deloitte a nearly $16 million contract to develop a tracking system to enable public health officials to schedule coronavirus shots and manage supplies.

Politico reported the unproven data system threatens to bypass state trackers that have long been mainstays in public immunization programs.

States already havevaccine registries that perform the same basic functions and can help doctors see what shots patients already have. But the Trump administration has said the scope of the pandemic requires new infrastructure to cover all the providers who might be involved in the response, Politico reported.

Deloitte is using technology from Salesforce to develop the system and tested it in a series of pilot projects in four states during the summer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said an initial version of the software was expected in October.

However, information on the new system remains scarce. States aren't sure if they will be forced to use the new system or be able to enhance existing systems. The administration also failed to specify what information was to be entered when vaccinations begin.

This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has tried to replace a long-standing health system. Originally the administration tried to replace the CDC coronavirus tracking system that helped calculate COVID-19 hospitalizations.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services took over the new coronavirus tracking system, but the CDC regained control following reports the new system was plagued by delays and inconsistencies in data since being implemented in July.

Among other things, certain key statistics, such as inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, were updated only once a week, rather than daily or multiple times a week as under the CDC system, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Clashes between the CDC and Trump administration are routine at this point.

Michael Caputo, 58, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, said without evidence the CDC was harboring a “resistance unit” determined to undermine President Trump, The New York Times reported Monday.

Former and current CDC officials described to the Times how Caputo and top aides routinely demanded the agency revise, delay and even scuttle the weekly reports on the coronavirus because the information was unflattering to President Trump.

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