COVID Tracker Adds Test Result Data

Members may want to be aware that the COVID-19 Data Tracker produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has expanded to include laboratory COVID-19 test results. With the ending of the Public Health Emergency (PHE), the CDC has retired composite measures of COVID-19 prevalence (i.e., Transmission Rates and County Levels), with hospitalization data being the primary data for tracking community incidence. Those data are supplemented by wastewater monitoring, emergency room visit, and mortality information. However, hospitalization rates remain the only data available consistently on the county level.

Recently, the CDC has added the percentage of positive COVID-19 nucleic antigen amplification tests (NAATs) reported over the past week. Those are available by federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) region. New York State is in Region 2, which also includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The most recent test positivity rate in Region 2 is 4.3 percent based on about 1,200 tests, a rate that is slightly higher than the two- and four-week rates that the COVID Tracker also provides. The COVID Data Tracker page with the new information is available here.

Contact: Darius Kirstein, dkirstein@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8841