CNN
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As the nation’s public health emergency expires on May 11, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop reporting its color-coded Covid-19 Community Levels as a way to track the spread of the infection.
Instead, the CDC will keep tabs on Covid-19 largely by tracking hospitalizations and monitoring wastewater in some areas, according to a source familiar with the agency’s plans.
This is much the same way the agency tracks other respiratory infections, such as the flu.
The agency could announce the end of its community levels as early as next week, though the timing has not yet been finalized, the person said.
The agency adopted its Covid-19 Community Levels in late February of 2022. The community levels replaced an older map that color coded counties by the weekly rate of new infections and what percentage of Covid-19 tests were found to be positive.
The new Community Levels shifted the focus to hospitals – how many people were being admitted for Covid-19 and how many beds were left. The model also took into account the weekly rate of new infections in an area.
The impact was immediate. Suddenly areas that had appeared dark red for high transmission on a map were yellow or green. Under the CDC’s new system, masks were no longer recommended for large swaths of the country.
The change in metrics will happen out of necessity, the source said.
The end of the public health emergency will mean that health departments are no longer required to submit Covid-19 case numbers to the CDC, taking away its ability to track that metric.
“Some of the metrics simply cannot be sustained, because of the change in data reporting,” the person said.
Cases had already become a less reliable way to track community spread as people switched to home testing and infections went unreported to health authorities.
