The end of the new coronavirus infection nationwide public health emergency The method has changed significantly. coronavirus data are collected and reported.familiar and colorful Community level reportsgraphs showing fluctuating cases, and the annoying smartphone notifications that helped guide people through the first three years of the pandemic are all but gone.
As of Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention neither tracks nor publishes daily new case data, as states are no longer required to report such figures. Instead, the CDC changed its policy. surveillance activities Towards monitoring weekly coronavirus-positive hospitalizations and deaths.
“We will continue to monitor the developments of COVID-19,” said CDC Chief Deputy Director Nirakh Shah. briefing session. “Even if you don’t count every snowflake anymore, you still know it’s snowing,” Shah said.
Doctors and public health officials have long argued that the number of infected people is no longer a reliable indicator of a pandemic due to the widespread use of rapid at-home tests that rarely report results.
“It is possible that a significant number of people have been infected, but they may not know because the published numbers are really misleading,” he said. Dr. Bob WakterDirector of Medicine, UCSF.
Instead, the CDC now a set of different metrics Virus monitoring, such as sampling wastewater for virus counts and focusing on hospital admissions.
On a practical level, this means less frequent and less granular data updates for Americans who want to closely monitor the COVID-19 situation, and the ability to respond to the virus on an individual basis. Individual risk assessment becomes difficult.
You can get tested at home before traveling across the country, but it will be harder to tell if there are any new outbreaks in your destination. People are also less likely to know if the virus is spreading rapidly in their community before attending a large gathering such as a summer wedding or music festival.
The CDC’s COVID-19 data tracker will no longer show national COVID-19 test positive rates or weekly COVID-19 deaths; It was decided to display the proportion of related deaths.
By the end of April, the CDC tracked more than 104 million COVID-19 cases, more than 6 million related hospitalizations, and more than 1.1 million COVID-related deaths in the United States.
delayed snapshot
Changes to reporting may make it more difficult to detect future spikes. Hospitalization is a lagging indicator of community-acquired transmission, so outbreaks may not be identified until the epidemic is already advanced.
“In a way, it makes sense, because we’ve been talking about the number of people infected doesn’t matter for home testing,” said Dr. Abrar Karan, an infectious disease researcher at Stanford University’s Center for Global Health Innovation. But abandoning case-tracking altogether “seems like a big concession,” he said.
Instead, “our system for home testing and reporting could be better,” he said.
The federal government has also scrapped a color-coding system introduced in February 2022 that classifies COVID-19 community levels across the country as low (green), medium (yellow), and high (red). These stages were based on case rates and hospitalization metrics and helped local health departments issue guidance on mitigation measures such as masks and restrictions on gatherings.
“We’ve worked hard to keep the data to help us understand what’s happening with the virus in the United States,” said outgoing CDC Director Rochelle Wallenski. “But in the end [public health emergency] This means the CDC, which many Americans have come to expect, will no longer be able to collect data and share information. ”
Instead of the previous system, the only county-level data CDC currently reports is the number of COVID-19 positive hospitalizations, broken down as follows: 3 new tiers: green, yellow, orange. More than 99% of the country was classified as green tier as of Monday, showing fewer than 10 hospitalizations per 100,000 people per week.
The CDC’s new COVID-19 map shows the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients by county, broken down into green, yellow, and orange tiers. Today, more than 99% of the US is in the green tier, indicating fewer than 10 hospitalizations per week per 100,000 population.
Center for Disease ControlIn addition to changing data reporting, the US has ended national reporting. Smartphone exposure notification thursday program. The service, which warned individuals of possible exposure to the virus, was discontinued the same day the COVID-19 national emergency ended.
The CDC announced that it will continue its sewage monitoring program and collect data from sewage systems across the country, covering approximately 140 million Americans. The agency also established partnerships with 450 public health laboratories across the country to voluntarily report their local COVID-19 test positive rates and data related to influenza, RSV and other respiratory viruses. Encouraged.
“COVID-19 remains a risk, and CDC remains committed to preventing severe COVID-19-related illness and death, especially among people at high risk,” said Chief Deputy Director Shah. rice field.
To further strengthen surveillance, authorities recently Started a pilot program San Francisco International Airport will analyze wastewater from incoming international travelers with the goal of identifying potential subspecies of concern.
Data reporting changes also spill over to state and local agencies.
“We’re really going to move away from case-based reporting,” California epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pang told doctors ahead of the change last month.
The California Department of Public Health is currently updating that information. COVID-19 Dashboard has temporarily stopped reporting hospitalization data once a week. The agency said it plans to redefine how COVID-19 deaths are tracked, with a focus on death certification rather than relying solely on investigations and reports by local health departments.
California’s COVID-19 sewage monitoring program is also hitting a wall.
“Budget constraints won’t allow us to scale as much as we want,” Mr. Pang said.
San Francisco Health Department Releases Updates COVID-19 We plan to integrate a public dashboard to collect data daily.
“We will continue to track COVID-19 data and respond to public health concerns and community needs,” he said. “Our response to the coronavirus emergency is based on data, science and facts. Data and dashboards help us get a complete picture of COVID-19 in our communities.”
Please contact Aidin Vaziri: avasiri@sfchronicle.com