The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to simplify the COVID-19 hospital data it collects as the demands of the pandemic evolve and some assembled information has become outdated or redundant.
The agency is likely to stop collecting data from hospitals on suspected COVID-19 cases that haven’t been confirmed by tests, for example, and may also wind down federal reporting from rehabilitation and mental health facilities that aren’t major intake points for virus cases, according to a draft of the plan that was viewed by Bloomberg News.
Early in the pandemic, when COVID-19 tests were sparse and it could take days to confirm cases, the U.S. encouraged hospitals to report all likely infections. But since most hospitals now test all patients on admission, suspect cases can be confirmed or ruled out within hours, making the data not particularly useful.
