Hospitals no longer have to report COVID-19 hospital admissions, hospital capacity, or related information to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to the agency.
The statement further said that it still encourages hospitals to engage in “voluntary reporting” of hospitalizations.
Officials have said they will use other data sources such as wastewater, laboratory tests, and emergency department information to report on the spread of COVID-19.
“A key lesson we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is the importance of having reporting systems in place before an active emergency,” a CDC spokesperson told news outlets about the change. “These data have a significant and ongoing value for protecting patient health and safety as well as public health,” the statement added.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March 2020, federal officials have been mandated to collect virus-related data from hospitals and states. The COVID-19 public health emergency officially expired in May 2023, but the hospital reporting was extended.
Meanwhile, CDC data shows that COVID-19 hospitalizations have appeared to hit a record low in the United States, years after virus spread to the United States in early 2020.
There were 5,615 COVID-19 hospitalizations in the most recent week where data is available, said the agency. There were more than 150,000 weekly admissions during the peak in January 2022, according to the agency’s historical data.
Reported COVID-19 deaths have also been on the decline this year, hitting new lows, according to the CDC’s tracking website. An estimated 231 deaths were confirmed in the most recent week of data that was made available.
The agency added that officials believe COVID-19 “remains an important public health threat, despite overall decreases in COVID-19-related severe disease since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.” That’s because, according to the agency’s data, COVID-19-related hospitalizations were higher among adults aged 65 and older.
Several weeks ago, a survey released by the Pew Research Center found that 20 percent of Americans think COVID-19 is a “major threat to the health of the U.S. population,” while 10 percent are “very concerned they will get it and require hospitalization.”
“This data represents a low ebb of public concern about the virus that reached its height in the summer and fall of 2020, when as many as two-thirds of Americans viewed COVID-19 as a major threat to public health,” Pew’s article said.
“Almost half of those who received a flu shot from a health care provider chose not to get the updated COVID-19 vaccine,” the report found.
The CDC in March changed its longstanding guidance that Americans who test positive for COVID-19 no longer need to stay in isolation for five days, saying that people can return to work or regular activities if their symptoms are mild and improving and it’s been a day since they’ve had a fever.
However, the CDC guidance for workers at nursing homes and other health care facilities is staying the same. That includes a recommendation that medical personnel stay home at least seven days after symptoms first appear, and that they test negative within two days of returning to work.
The CDC had originally advised 10 days of isolation, but in late 2021 cut it to five days for Americans who catch the virus and have no symptoms or only brief illnesses. Under that guidance for the general public, isolation only ended if a person had been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medications and if other symptoms were resolving.
