by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched a new way for Americans to look up how high or low virus levels are COVID-19 And flu are in their local area before 2024.
This year’s new “community snapshot” is the CDC’s latest effort to repackage its data in one place so Americans can decide when to collect additional data. precautionary measures recommended in the guidelines, such as masking or testinginto autumn and winter.
It revolves around a sweeping new weekly metric called “acute respiratory illness.” The metric’s debut meets a goal set months ago by agency officials, aiming to measure the risk of COVID-19 alongside other airborne pathogens on a single scale from “minimal” to ” very high’.
“The main thing we’re trying to do here is not just one dashboard. It’s not just presenting people with a bunch of information and expecting them to navigate through it,” Capt. Matthew Ritchey of the CDC told CBS News.
Ritchey, who co-leads the team coordinating the data fed into the snapshots, said the CDC brings together experts from across the agency every Thursday to review the week’s data coming from hospitals and emergency rooms. wastewater sampling and testing laboratories.
“All these groups come together, talk through their different data systems and their expertise and say, ‘This is what gets my attention.’ And that is what we want to mean to the public,” he said.
Ritchey mentioned the first signs of respiratory sincytial virusor RSV, is starting to rise as expected in Florida this season, which is noted at the top of this week’s report.
Behind the CDC’s new measure of ‘respiratory illness’
Based on emergency department data, the “acute respiratory illness” metric rates total infections in each state or province from “minimal” to “very high.”
That is broadly defined to include infections from COVID-19 and influenza, as well as a range of other airborne diseases such as whooping cough or pneumonia.
An earlier definition the agency had relied on, “influenza-like illness,” had been too narrow, Ritchey said, with requirements such as fever excluding many patients.
A separate set of standalone levels continues to be calculated each week COVID-19flu and RSV.
The formula behind these levels is based on historical peaks and valleys in emergency room trends analyzed from each state.
“We’ve looked over the last few years and understood the lows of the year, based on our lab testing, and at that point we say this is the baseline or ‘minimum’ category,” Ritchey said.
How to tell which COVID variants are dominant
Not all of the CDC’s data met the cutoff to be included in the first tier of the agency’s new snapshot.
While the front page for the general public, for example, does mention current SARS-CoV-2 variants such as XECDetails about its prevalence remain on a separate web page deeper on the CDC website.
“That whole jumble of a lot of acronyms or letters and things like that just don’t really resonate with them that much,” he said.
For influenza, the CDC is still publishing more detailed weekly updates designed for experts, through the agency’s “FluView” reports.
These include a weekly breakdown of the ‘type’ – influenza A or B – and the ‘subtype’ – such as H3N2 or H1N1 – reported to the agency by testing laboratories.
Health authorities are also closely monitoring trends in flu subtyping as they can help explain changes in the severity of the virus and effectiveness of vaccines.
Future changes are coming
The snapshot remains a work in progress as the CDC gathers feedback from both the public and local health departments.
“We have a continuum of users, from the healthcare professional to my parents, who provide feedback on how they’re using it. More often the feedback we get is, ‘Hey, I’m using this to help inform how I work, or talk to my elderly parents,” he said.
One big change coming later this season is the resumption of national hospitalization data, after the requirement for hospitals to report the numbers to the federal government was dropped during the pandemic.
A new rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to restart data collection for COVID-19, influenza and RSV will go into effect in November.
“When that data comes back in and reaches a sufficiently robust level, the intention is for that to be included on the site as well,” he said.
Another long-term goal is to add information specific to other respiratory disease culprits, in addition to COVID-19, influenza, and RSV.
“We might want to be able to talk about some other things that aren’t the big three, like mycoplasma and also some of those other things that we know peak during certain parts of the season,” he said.
