FRIDAY, Oct. 7, 2022 (HealthDay News) — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that it will stop publishing COVID-19 case and death data on a daily basis and instead issue weekly updates, starting Oct. 20.
“To allow for additional reporting flexibility, reduce the reporting burden on states and jurisdictions, and maximize surveillance resources, CDC is moving to a weekly reporting cadence,” the agency explained in a post.
The move is in line with efforts to wind down other COVID-19-related tools on the CDC website. It eases reporting requirements for state and local health departments who can report the information weekly on Wednesdays, the agency said. Many states and other countries have already stopped issuing daily reports. Community Level ratings, which provide guidance to counties, are already updated just weekly, as are vaccination numbers.
CDC updates for COVID-19 will now be released on Thursdays.
The agency is continuing its daily hospitalization reports, which the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services collects. The CDC will take charge of that data in December, and it is not clear if it will still be published daily, CBS News reported. It is also not clear how accurate the case number reports were, because at-home testing is now common and many cases likely go unreported.
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