The federal map that millions of Americans check to see how much respiratory illness is circulating in their state has been rebuilt for the new season, and it is entering the fall with holes in three jurisdictions.
The CDC's Respiratory Virus Activity Levels page, updated Sept. 18, discloses that Iowa's data feed to the National Syndromic Surveillance Program was terminated on May 6 after the state changed health information exchange vendors. Only data through the week ending May 2 counted toward Iowa's new thresholds, and the page states that Iowa's activity levels display as unavailable for the weeks ending May 9 and later. Separately, the agency lists no emergency department data for South Dakota or Guam, and says Missouri's baseline had to be computed partly from neighboring states because of data quality problems.
