The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has lifted the requirement for hospitals to report COVID-19 hospitalization data to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Effective May 1, the CDC says reporting by hospitals of COVID-19 hospital admissions, hospital capacity or hospital occupancy data is no longer a mandate.
The CDC does however still strongly recommend voluntary reporting of the data.
Any data voluntarily reported after the May 1 date will become available on May 10.
This comes as COVID hospitalizations hit a record low.
Weekly COVID hospitalizations dropped to an all-time low of 5,615 hospitalizations for the week of April 20, according to the CDC.
Comparatively, hospitalizations for coronavirus peaked during the week of Jan. 15, 2022, with 150,650 hospitalizations, CDC data shows. This came amid a surge of infections from the omicron variant.
Federal officials have been collecting COVID-19 data from hospitals since the pandemic began in March 2020.
Science and Tech