Some states pull back on daily COVID reporting

As COVID-19 cases fall across the U.S., some states are scaling back their reporting strategies after dropping pandemic-related requirements such as masking.

South Dakota ended daily COVID-19 reporting on Friday and will pivot to weekly updates. With a seven-day average of 35 daily cases, the state is experiencing some of the country’s lowest per-capita spread, The Associated Press reported.

Other states that have made the shift to weekly reports include Arizona, Hawaii, Kentucky, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Carolina, as well as Washington, D.C., according to The New York Times. 

Experts expect a continued slowdown of reporting cycles as COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths begin to decline, the newspaper added. 

“We’ve moved to a place where we don’t need to know the absolute numbers,” Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told the Times.

“We can still monitor trends for people who are getting tests in public settings. We still have a good sense of where the absolute numbers are going,” he added. 

Meanwhile, other experts fear that less reporting may present problems in the event of a possible future uptick in infections.

But on Sunday, Chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci said that he did not think the U.S. would see another surge in infections with the latest variant, though he said an uptick was likely. 

“Hopefully, we won’t see a surge. I don’t think we will. The easiest way to prevent that is to continue to get people vaccinated. And for those who have been vaccinated, to continue to get them boosted, so that’s really where we stand right now,” Fauci said.