Oct. 8, 2022 — The U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention says it can begin updating COVID-19 case and demise counts on a weekly as a substitute of a every day foundation beginning Oct. 20.
“To permit for extra reporting flexibility, scale back the reporting burden on states and jurisdictions, and maximize surveillance assets, CDC is transferring to a weekly reporting cadence for line degree and mixture case and demise knowledge,” the CDC stated Thursday.
The CDC remains to be offering every day knowledge on COVID hospitalizations, utilizing info from the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies. It’s unknown if that may change when the Nationwide Healthcare Security Community takes duty for the gathering of COVID hospital knowledge mid-December, the CDC stated.
The CDC has been publishing every day COVID knowledge for greater than two years. The CDC’s COVID group degree rankings are already up to date as soon as per week, on Thursdays. State and native governments use group degree rankings in deciding when and the place residents needs to be suggested to put on masks.
The change is one other signal of a de-escalation in COVID response as the foremost pandemic statistics drop. The New York Instances reported that on Oct. 7 the US was averaging 40,186 new COVID instances a day (a 26% drop over two weeks), 26,994 COVID-related hospitalizations (an 11% drop), and 380 COVID-related deaths (an 11% drop). Well being consultants say the case counts are literally increased as a result of many dwelling testing outcomes usually are not reported to well being businesses.
Earlier this week, the CDC introduced it will now not keep an inventory of journey advisories for overseas international locations as a result of “fewer international locations are testing or reporting COVID-19 instances,” The New York Instances reported. As a substitute, the CDC will publish well being notices when just for “a regarding Covid-19 variant” in a specific nation.
Anthony Fauci, the White Home chief medical advisor, stated Tuesday that COVID instances could rise this winter, particularly if a brand new COVID variant emerges.
“Though we will really feel good that we’re entering into the suitable route, we will’t let our guard down,” Fauci stated in a dialogue hosted by the USC Annenberg Heart for Well being Journalism. “We’re getting into into the winter months, the place it doesn’t matter what the respiratory illness is, there’s all the time a threat of an uptick.”