Gaps in CDC and states reporting data on breakthrough Covid cases hampers response

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Fri, 2021-08-27 16:43 — mike kraft

Holes in reporting of breakthrough Covid cases hamper CDC response The agency originally tried to track all infections in vaccinated people, from mild to severe. But in May it decided to focus on the most severe cases. Erin Banco POLITICO

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is using outdated and unreliable data on coronavirus breakthrough infections to help make major decisions, such as who gets booster shots, according to three officials with direct knowledge of the situation.

The agency originally tried to track all infections in vaccinated people, from mild to severe. But in May it decided to focus on the most severe cases, saying that would allow it to better monitor overall conditions and make more informed, targeted policy decisions.

Forty-nine states are now regularly sending CDC information on hospitalized breakthrough patients. But more than a dozen told POLITICO that they do not have the capacity to match patients’ hospital admission data with their immunization records. Instead, those states rely on hospital administrators to report breakthrough infections. The resulting data is often aggregated, inaccurate and omits critical details for teasing out trends, such as which vaccine a person received and whether they have been fully vaccinated, a dozen state officials said.

The gaps in this crucial data stream raise questions about the Biden administration’s ability to spot and respond to changes in the virus’s behavior — such as the rapid spread of the Delta variant, which crowded out other strains — or vaccines’ performance. It also underscores the extent to which the CDC and public health departments across the country are still struggling to collect and study critical Covid-19 information 18 months after the pandemic began.

ALSO SEE: States Pull Back on Covid Data Even Amid Delta Surge

Two state government websites in Georgia recently stopped posting updates on covid-19 cases in prisons and long-term care facilities, just as the dangerous delta variant was taking hold.

Data has been disappearing recently in other states as well.

Florida, for example, now reports covid cases, deaths and hospitalizations once a week, instead of daily, as before. ...