Mary Wilson
Well-known member
25 AUGUST 2020
Amy Maxmen
South Korea’s grip on the coronavirus faltered this month when a large church in Seoul had an outbreak — involving 915 cases as of 25 August. The government has reinstated restrictions in the city to prevent a surge, but it's also reporting details of the outbreak publicly. For instance, it has shared that 120 people infected at the church have spread the coronavirus to people at 22 venues, including 4 call centres and 3 hospitals in Seoul.
Almost every day for the past seven months, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its website with near-real-time information on local outbreaks. The site also reports several COVID-19 statistics for every region of the country.
Data dashboards in Singapore and New Zealand offer similar windows into how the coronavirus is spreading within their borders. This helps policymakers and citizens determine how to go about daily life, while reducing risks — and provides researchers with a wealth of data.
By contrast, the United States offers vanishingly few details on how the disease is spreading, even as people increasingly socialize and travel, and authorities reopen schools and businesses. This state of affairs is frustrating data researchers, who want to help authorities make decisions that can save lives.
"We shouldn’t be flying blind at this point," says Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "We shouldn’t have to speculate."
Experts told Nature that political meddling, privacy concerns and years of neglect of public-health surveillance systems are among the reasons for the dearth of information in the United States.
... The CDC and four US health departments declined to speak to Nature about how they're managing COVID-19 data. However, former scientific employees and researchers who collaborate with them offered suggestions about why data is lagging and lacking in the United States.
... Epidemiologists at universities would like to help overburdened state and local health departments to analyse whatever data they have so they can help officials to direct an efficient coronavirus response. Typically, health departments share disease-surveillance data with researchers on request. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, epidemiologists have been denied access.
doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-02478-z
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02478-z
Amy Maxmen
South Korea’s grip on the coronavirus faltered this month when a large church in Seoul had an outbreak — involving 915 cases as of 25 August. The government has reinstated restrictions in the city to prevent a surge, but it's also reporting details of the outbreak publicly. For instance, it has shared that 120 people infected at the church have spread the coronavirus to people at 22 venues, including 4 call centres and 3 hospitals in Seoul.
Almost every day for the past seven months, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its website with near-real-time information on local outbreaks. The site also reports several COVID-19 statistics for every region of the country.
Data dashboards in Singapore and New Zealand offer similar windows into how the coronavirus is spreading within their borders. This helps policymakers and citizens determine how to go about daily life, while reducing risks — and provides researchers with a wealth of data.
By contrast, the United States offers vanishingly few details on how the disease is spreading, even as people increasingly socialize and travel, and authorities reopen schools and businesses. This state of affairs is frustrating data researchers, who want to help authorities make decisions that can save lives.
"We shouldn’t be flying blind at this point," says Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "We shouldn’t have to speculate."
Experts told Nature that political meddling, privacy concerns and years of neglect of public-health surveillance systems are among the reasons for the dearth of information in the United States.
... The CDC and four US health departments declined to speak to Nature about how they're managing COVID-19 data. However, former scientific employees and researchers who collaborate with them offered suggestions about why data is lagging and lacking in the United States.
... Epidemiologists at universities would like to help overburdened state and local health departments to analyse whatever data they have so they can help officials to direct an efficient coronavirus response. Typically, health departments share disease-surveillance data with researchers on request. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, epidemiologists have been denied access.
doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-02478-z
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02478-z