A Surpising About-Face in New York as Governor Hochul Requires More Detailed COVID Hospitalization Reporting – Opinion

New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued an order to clarify COVID hospitalization information as her state is under increasing pressure. Hospitals will have to inform the authorities if a patient was admitted for COVID related reasons, or if they were simply tested for it while being treated elsewhere.

“Someone is in a car accident, and they go to the emergency room and they test positive for COVID while they’re there,” said Hochul, “They’re not being treated for COVID.” A surprising sentiment, particularly to people who have been saying something similar since the beginning of the pandemic when data on hospitalizations became a driving indicator in state and national health policies.

Hochul herself has been spot-calling many hospitals in her state, saying that when asked how many cases were hospitalized for other reasons but tested positive for COVID, the numbers ranged from “20 to sometimes 50 percent.”

Over time, it became clear that not only could vaccinated persons transmit and carry COVID but they also can have breakthrough infections. Therefore, it is important to begin implementing measures that give public health officials – and the public itself– a clearer picture of the pandemic and their local health systems’ resources.

Hochul’s most recent request for increased data transparency isn’t her first, as she has previously made efforts to undo the piecemeal data reporting done under Governor Cuomo.

The state will be able to better understand the impact of Delta and Omicron by giving more context to data about COVID hospitalizations. This addresses an issue that many data scientists and medical professionals have been concerned about: the limits of our data collection. It was just too bad that the Pandemic took place nearly two years after New York and other states had urged for greater clarity in reporting their data.

New York Governor Hochul is likely to be the first step in a movement where the state-level data and the required data collection by the CDC become far more useful and less superficial. A clearer definition for COVID deaths would also be helpful if Gov. Hochul listens.

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