A Surprising 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. This order requires hospitals to indicate whether patients have been admitted due to COVID or simply because they are positive.

“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.”

We learned over time that people vaccinated can transmit and carry COVID. However, they also have the potential to contract 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’s unfortunate it took almost two years for the pandemic to end before New York or any other state had explicitly pressed for more clarity and depth in data reporting.

Governor Hochul, New York, and others will be making a start in a movement where the state-level data and the required data collection by the CDC become far more useful and less superficial. If Governor Hochul was listening, it would be especially helpful to have a better definition of COVID death, as well as admission data.