The majority of the states of the United States has stopped giving the per-day basis details related to new COVID-19 cases. These individuals have been admitted to the health care centers due to the infection and the total deaths.
As per the information shared by the sources, while most states continue to report daily, more than a dozen have reduced reporting to once or twice a week. Arizona, Hawaii, Kentucky, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia have switched to weekly reporting. Wyoming has changed to biweekly reporting. The Department of Public Health officials has stated that further cutbacks are on the way.
New cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are declining across the country, and some experts are afraid that the dip in reporting would create blind spots if the epidemic resurfaces.
Along with this, even as cases rise again in Europe, which has typically acted as a bellwether for the pandemic’s course in the United States, many states have lately lifted pandemic restrictions. Though testing has decreased in certain nations, the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University reports that identified cases have increased by 20% globally in the previous two weeks.
Moreover, the chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, which represents the public health agencies of all 50 states, Washington D.C., and U.S. territories named Dr Marcus Plescia mentioned in a statement, “We have moved to a place where we don’t need to know the absolute numbers. We can still observe the trends for individuals who are getting tests for COVID-19 in public settings. We still have a good sense of where the maximum numbers are going.”
Furthermore, he highlighted that the decrease in the reporting of the cases does not depict that the states are not prepared for the upcoming infections.
