![]() and from travelers who come from abroad and test positive-to monitor for new variants. The CDC will still conduct genomic sequencing of positive samples-both from people within the U.S. The CDC will shift to reporting deaths from COVID-19 based on death certificates, which record the date of death, a more timely metric. Until now, deaths were recorded by the date on which they were reported, which allowed for some lag and inaccuracies in matching them up to spikes in cases. The V-safe system, which was created specifically to monitor for COVID-19 vaccine side effects through a smartphone app, will no longer accept new reports, but CDC plans to launch a new version of V-safe later this year.ĬOVID-19 deaths will also continue to appear on the COVID-19 Data Tracker, but in a more accurate way, according to Jackson. The CDC will also continue to monitor for COVID-19 vaccine side effects through its VAERS system. ![]() Nearly all of the 64 states and jurisdictions (such as the Marshall and Virgin Islands) that work with the CDC have signed data-use agreements in which they will continue to supply information on how many vaccinations they have administered. Vaccination data will still be tracked on the CDC’s COVID-19 Data Tracker. The network covers about 75% of all emergency visits in the U.S., and weekly assessments of how many people test positive for COVID-19 during visits can provide early hints about whether cases are creeping upward. In addition, the agency will also draw data from its National Syndromic Surveillance Program, which collects emergency-department data from 6,300 health facilities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam. The network does not include all labs testing for COVID-19, but it’s a representative sample that will continue to give CDC a heads up on when, and where, more COVID-19 cases might be emerging. The CDC will now rely on labs voluntarily reporting dataĪlthough the CDC has agreements with some labs to continue reporting negative results, the agency is moving to include COVID-19 in its National Respiratory and Enteric Virus Surveillance System, a network of 450 labs around the country that test and voluntarily report results for respiratory diseases. But after May 11, most labs will no longer be required to report negative test results. That’s because in order to calculate that measure, CDC needs to have data from all lab test results, including negative ones, to determine what percent of the total are positive. “It is one of those early sentinel markers that we use to understand where things are going, and we intend to continue the investment CDC made in this system.”Īfter May 11, we’ll also no longer have insight into “percent positivity,” or the percent of COVID-19 tests that are positive in a given area. ![]() “Wastewater allows us to get insights into not just COVID-19, but other infectious diseases as well,” said Shah. The CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System, which launched in 2020, involves collecting wastewater and analyzing it for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in hundreds of sites covering 140 million people (about 40% of the U.S. Other systems, such as wastewater surveillance, will help to provide a window into how cases of COVID-19 might be ebbing and flowing in different communities. Nirav Shah, CDC’s principal deputy director.īut instead of reporting admissions daily, as hospitals do now, they will do so weekly. “We will still be able to tell that it’s snowing, even though we are no longer counting every snowflake,” said Dr. In a May 5 report, CDC scientists conducted analyses comparing hospital admission data and its correlation to community levels of infections and found a 99% concordance between the two. Brendan Jackson, lead of the CDC’s COVID-19 response, during a briefing. Hospitalizations are “the main driver of community levels of COVID-19,” said Dr. The CDC will now rely on hospital admissions data, which hospitals will continue to report to the CDC. After May 11, states and jurisdictions will no longer be required to report cases to the CDC, so the data the agency will receive won’t allow them to accurately capture the burden of COVID-19 cases in any given county.
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