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CDC Releases New COVID-19 Tracking System; First For The U.S.
States reporting cases of COVID-19 to CDC. The deeper reds indicate the most cases. Courtesy of the CDC
The federal government today unveiled the first detailed national system for tracking the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.
The new COVIDView system will provide weekly updates aimed at monitoring the outbreak across the country, based on the results of tests for the virus, people seeking care for flu-like systems and pneumonia and those diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Lynnette Brammer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said:
"I think it's really important. Information is vitally important. It allows us to see where we're going."
The absence of a coordinated national tracking system forced states to scramble to develop their own approaches, drawing from data routinely gathered from doctors and hospitals to monitor the flu every
The development of the CDC was welcomed by many public health experts.
"I think the information will be valuable," says Marc Lipsitch, a leading epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health.
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But Lipsitch and others criticized the agency for failing to develop a system like this much sooner and said the system still falls far short of what's needed. For example, information is really needed on a daily basis, several said.
"We're in the middle of the greatest pandemic in a century," says Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. "So I think what they're doing is fine and it is helpful. But we need something much more than that. The pandemic doesn't take the weekend off."
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