Remember how, in December, the CDC changed its recommendations for people who’d tested positive for COVID-19 to isolating for only five days instead of ten? And a bunch of experts were like, “Wait a second, I’m not sure if that’s sound science?” Well, studies since this guidance was changed have shown that, actually, a lot of people with COVID-19 are still contagious after five days. Yet the CDC has not revised its guidance at all.
Read MoreSources and updates for the week of April 10 include safety for large, indoor events; state data reporting frequencies; a new Long COVID task force; COVID-19 testing in schools; and more.
Read MoreSources and updates for the week of March 13 include vaccine data annotations, free rapid tests, a combination of Delta and Omicron, and more.
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My latest story with the Documenting COVID-19 project is an investigation into Utah’s school COVID-19 testing program, in collaboration with the Salt Lake Tribune. We investigated with a once-innovative program failed in fall 2021.
Read MoreAdditional news items for the week of February 27 include the CDC withholding data, BA.2 updates, and rapid testing out of isolation.
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This past Friday, the CDC announced a major shift to its guidance for determining COVID-19 safety measures based on county-level community metrics. The new guidance is intended to replace COVID-19 thresholds that the agency developed last summer, during the Delta wave; here, the CDC is promoting a shift from using cases and test positivity for local decision-making to using metrics tied directly to the healthcare system.
Read MoreA few additional news items from this week, including U.S. deaths caused by Omicron, failure to meet WHO vaccination targets, and a large event that turned out to not be a superspreader.
Read MoreThree additional news items for this week: lawmakers call for Long COVID data; we don’t know yet whether cannabis can treat COVID-19; have you received your free tests yet?
Read MoreFeatured sources for the week of January 23 include booster shot effectiveness, rapid test coverage, and risk assessment.
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This week, the U.S. government unveiled a new website where Americans can get free at-home COVID-19 tests. Within hours of this site going live, public health experts were already raising equity concerns about the free test distribution program. To address these concerns, the federal government should release data on where the free tests go—including breakdowns by state, county, ZIP code, race and ethnicity, the tests’ delivery dates, and more.
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