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Starting Wednesday, hospitals are no longer required to report COVID-19 hospitalizations, hospital capacity and hospital occupancy data to the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Previously, hospitals reported data to HHS through the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network.
Although hospitals are no longer required to submit data, the CDC still encourages them to submit data voluntarily. Data voluntarily reported to NHSN from 1 May will be available on the COVID Data Tracker Hospitalizations from 10 May.
The source of hospital information on the COVID Data Tracker home page will change from the National Healthcare Safety Network to COVID-NET. Instead of displaying the number of new hospitalizations nationwide, it displays the hospitalization rate due to the new coronavirus infection per 100,000 people.
What is the impact?
The number of COVID-19-related hospitalizations reached a record low of 5,615 in the week ending April 20, according to CDC data.
The CDC announced in February that it was monitoring the new coronavirus strain BA.2.87.1, which has more than 30 changes to the coronavirus's spike protein. The spike protein is what the immune system targets when a virus enters the body. The immune system is primed to protect people through vaccines and immunity from previous infections. In theory, variants with multiple changes in the spike protein could be more likely to escape this immunity.
Over the past year, major changes have been made to the spike protein in several variants. But despite these changes, pre-existing immunity from vaccines or previous infections still provides sufficient protection, the CDC said.
bigger trends
JN.1 is currently the fastest-spreading new coronavirus variant in the United States, accounting for about 21% of new infections as of December.
JN.1 was first detected in the United States in September and accounted for just 0.1% of coronavirus infections for the first month or so. The fact that the virus continues to multiply, and the rate at which it does so, suggests that it is either more contagious or is taking advantage of people's immune systems. Still, the CDC found no evidence that this variant poses a greater risk to public health than other current variants.
This is a positive finding not only for patients but also for hospitals, whose resources and workforce were strained to near breaking point at the height of the pandemic.
Jeff Lagasse I am the editor of Healthcare Finance News.
Email: jlagasse@himss.org
Healthcare Finance News is a publication of HIMSS Media.