Many states are scaling back on how often they report key COVID-19 statistics, a shift that some experts worry might hinder efforts to mitigate outbreaks and negative effects of the coronavirus.
A year ago, all 50 states were reporting new COVID-19 cases on a daily basis. But that has gradually trailed off. This week, Pennsylvania will be the latest state to switch from daily to weekly updates, leaving just six states that will still be reporting new COVID-19 cases every day of the week.
About half of states now report just once a week, with Florida down to every two weeks. There have always been fluctuations in daily reporting, making the seven-day average of daily change a smoother way to track trends than single day-to-day change. But scaling back makes the trends even bumpier; it's harder to isolate whether a week-over-week increase in cases is a true trend or the result of a data dump.