Is COVID endemic? Here’s what health experts are saying.
How soon could we see COVID-19 go from pandemic to endemic? Here’s what we know now.
Just the FAQs, USA TODAY
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Starting this week, Lane County Public Health is changing when it reports COVID-19 data. Reports will go from daily to weekly, including how many cases have been reported the previous week as well as information about whether the virus has been found in wastewater and which variants have been detected.
Over two years ago, public health began to share reports of the number of new cases and how many people were hospitalized by it on a daily basis. Eventually, staff would take the weekends off, but the steady stream of information about the virus’ ebbs and flows continued on weekdays.
At this point in the pandemic, as more people test for COVID-19 at home, which often is not reported to public health, and the latest variants send fewer people to the hospital, daily case numbers reported to public health offer less insight on the virus’ prevalence and impact in the community as it used to, Jason Davis, Lane County Public Health spokesperson, said.
The change is expected to begin Tuesday or Wednesday. Going forward, weekly updates will be posted on Monday on the county’s online dashboard. In addition to how many cases were reported the week before, the report will include an executive summary about COVID-19 found in wastewater and what variants are circulating in the county. While more residents have reported their at-home positive tests lately, the number of COVID-19 cases reported to the county is still considered a significant undercount because it relies on people opting in to manually submitting their status, whereas PCR tests are automatically reported to public health.
Davis said the new reporting system will combine all the information available for “a more complete picture.”
He added that this is the system for now, but as the virus changes course so might public health.
“This is the current COVID situation, not the forever COVID situation. We don’t know what variants might pop up. We don’t know what next fall is going to look like,” Davis said. “All that is is really up to time and the virus.”
Contact reporter Tatiana Parafiniuk-Talesnick at Tatiana@registerguard.com or 541-521-7512, and follow her on Twitter @TatianaSophiaPT. Want more stories like this? Subscribe to get unlimited access and support local journalism.
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