A few weeks ago, I learned that the WastewaterSCAN project has a newsletter, which shares updates about COVID-19 and other diseases nationally and for the Bay Area in California. It’s a helpful resource for following infectious disease trends.
It’s an unfortunate reality in the Long COVID media landscape that a lot of journalists and commentators write about this condition without really doing their research. Two recent stories (one in the Washington Post and one in Slate) make mistakes and spread misinformation, in fairly high-profile outlets.
We are in an era of dashboard shutdowns. Government agencies, research groups, and media organizations alike are winding down their COVID-19 reporting efforts. So, here’s a list of dashboards that have NOT yet shut down.
Nationally, we continue to see the same slow decline of COVID-19 spread across the U.S., as shown by official case data, hospitalizations, and wastewater surveillance. Reported cases dropped by 13% last week compared to the week prior, while new hospital admissions dropped by 9%.
This past Friday, the CDC’s COVID-19 data team announced that its newsletter, the COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review, will send its final issue on Friday, May 12. That’s the day after the federal public health emergency for COVID-19 ends.
When the public health emergency ends this spring, COVID-19 testing is going to move further in two separate directions: rapid, at-home tests at the individual level, and wastewater testing at the community level. That was my main takeaway from an online event last Tuesday, hosted by Arizona State University and the State and Territory Alliance for Testing.
The trend continues: COVID-19 spread is still on the decline across the U.S., but it’s a slow decline. These updates are getting pretty repetitive to write, as we’ve been seeing this pattern since late January—which, honestly, I’m taking as a good sign.
American Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog organization that shares government information through public records requests, recently reached a settlement in a lawsuit with the CDC. The settlement’s terms will make it easier for anyone requesting CDC documents to get results.