CDC struggles to track U.S. Covid cases as Omicron variant spreads quickly

‘It is embarrassing’: CDC struggles to track Covid cases as Omicron looms The U.S. was behind other countries in charting the spread of disease in the pandemic’s disastrous early months. It’s still behind as new variants threaten to disrupt the winter. Erin Banco POLITICO

As the world experiences new, more transmissible Covid-19 variants, scientists and health officials in the U.S. are still struggling to gather accurate and timely domestic data to help inform policy decisions to safeguard Americans.

Continuing gaps in the CDC’s data collection program, which almost two years into the pandemic still relies on state health departments who use a mix of often incompatible and outdated state systems to identify cases, impedes the nation’s understanding of where and how fast the virus is spreading, according to more than a dozen state and federal officials involved in tracking cases. ...