People’s CDC COVID-19 Weather Report: June 19, 2023

Data tracking overview amid reporting rollbacks, over 600 public comments sent to the CDC's vaccine recommendation committee, wildfire smoke and kid's respirators, take action for PCR testing access

Jun 19, 2023

The Weather:

Our team continues to strategize around how to report COVID rates in a way that allows folks to understand their risk of getting or spreading the virus, but without robust testing infrastructure and reporting, we’re left with a lot of imperfect data sources and visualizations. We’ve shared some of these in the past few weeks. Here are a few more:

The CDC’s COVID tracker includes wastewater data.

Title reads “CDC Wastewater Data Current SARS-CoV-2 virus levels by state.” A key on the right side defines current virus levels by category. White is a new site, dark blue is 0 to 19 percent, medium blue is 20 to 39 percent, light blue is 40 to 59 percent, orange is 60 to 79 percent, and red is 80 to 100 percent. A map of the United States contains dots corresponding to wastewater surveillance sites with each dot colored according to the key. Many dots are scattered across the East Coast and Midwest regions, mostly dark to light blue. A few red and orange dots appear in some states around metropolitan areas. Dots are fewer and farther between in the West, and they are mostly dark to light blue, concentrated around metropolitan areas. There are no dots in Alaska, Puerto Rico, or the US Virgin Islands. Hawaii has a few dark to light blue dots, and Guam has sites with no recent data. — Graphic source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#wastewater-surveillance

Though the CDC now presents a map with levels of virus in the wastewater, we will continue to use Biobot data to routinely report on wastewater. Read our fact sheet on wastewater to understand why.

This week, Biobot shows a small uptick in wastewater levels in the northeast, and other regions remain relatively stable. Of course, local wastewater may be more valuable to follow rather than regional levels.

Title reads “COVID-19 Wastewater Levels As of June 16, 2023.” A map of the United States in the upper left corner serves as a key. The West is green, Midwest is purple, South is pink, and Northeast is orange. A graph on the bottom is titled “Wastewater: Effective SARS-CoV-2 virus concentration (copies / mL of sewage).” The line graph shows by region dates between May 7, 2023 and June 11, 2023 with regional virus concentrations decreasing in May and continuing into June. A key on the right side states concentration as of June 14, 2023: 188 copies / mL (Northeast), 116 copies / mL (Midwest), 147 copies / mL (South), and 222 copies / mL (West). — Graphic source: Biobot Analytics

The New York Times just reintroduced its COVID Tracker. It is using CDC data to produce its data, largely focused on daily COVID admissions and deaths (which we know are grossly underreported).

Title reads “Current hospitalizations COVID-19 patients per 100000 people.” A key at the top shows a color scale, with yellow as 0 to 15, light orange as 16 to 30, orange as 31 to 45, red as 46 to 60, dark red as 61 to 75, and purple as 75 and above. Gray means no data. A map of the United States shows clusters of hospitalization counts. Much of the map is gray. There are scattered clusters of yellow in most states, except Montana and Wyoming. Some areas have higher reported cases, including Springfield, Oregon in dark orange, Roseville, California in orange, Taos, New Mexico in orange, Rochester, Minnesota in orange, Florence and Loris, South Carolina in dark orange, and Ketchikan, Alaska in orange. — Graphic source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/us/covid-personalized-tracker.html

Wins:

This week, Black Feminist Future hosted an in-person and virtual event, Get Free, proving that when we’re committed to doing so, when we lean into community care, we can protect ourselves and each other. And we must.

Collectively, we sent in over 600 public comments for the upcoming CDC ACIP hearing on vaccines! You’ll be able to watch the meeting here on June 21-23 starting at 8am each day.

In response to advocacy efforts on the part of Mask Mandate NY and others, New York State distributed free N95s to the general public in some areas impacted by the Quebec wildfires. This effort was shamefully late and insufficient, and advocates continue to call on the Governor and other leaders to make N95s free for all in order to prevent COVID spread, both in NY and elsewhere.

Failures of leadership and other such things:

The wildfires reminded many that there are still no approved respirators in child sizes. But check out this resource, put together by Aaron Collins, @masknerd, to find good masks for kids.

Rapid antigen tests are important tools, but they’re imperfect. A recently published study suggested that they may miss more cases of contagious COVID than previously understood. It also showed that adding a throat swab can increase the accuracy of the tests. The study emphasizes the importance of taking multiple rapid tests to more accurately detect infectivity.

Although rapid antigen tests may miss some COVID cases, a positive rapid antigen test result should always be considered contagious. Refer to our guide for additional resources if you test positive.

Forecast:

A phase 3 trial demonstrated that metformin may be a promising treatment for COVID. Metformin is commonly prescribed for treatment of type 2 diabetes. Although this work is still early, there are a couple of other important connections to diabetes worth knowing. People with diabetes face higher risks of severe disease with COVID infection, per the CDC’s list of high risk conditions. COVID infection itself also increases the risk of developing diabetes.

Take Action:

The House COVID hearing has been FULL of misinformation. And social media has been a HOT MESS of amplifying bad takes. We offer this reminder to those spiraling on social media. There is work to be done outside of the twitterverse or other social media echo chambers. Find a friend, connect with an organization engaging on an issue you care about, and let’s grow the power we need to demand the COVID mitigations and treatments we deserve.

Here are a few specific things you could do:

Send a letter to your senator urging them to ask CMS to track healthcare acquired COVID infections and implement universal masking. https://actionnetwork.org/letters/track-healthcare-acquired-covid-and-require-masks

Ask congress and the CDC to make PCR testing free for all of us. This is especially important because PCR testing has higher sensitivity, meaning it detects COVID cases when the amount of virus is lower. https://actionnetwork.org/letters/free-pcr-for-all

Notes: 1) The numbers in this report were current as of 6/16/2023. 2) Changes in testing access as well as data reporting have led many federal data sources to become less reliable. Fewer federal data sources may be included in current and upcoming Weather Reports, and we will do our best to provide context regarding the representativeness of limited data. 3) Check out the links throughout & see our website for more!

https://peoplescdc.org

People's CDC