CDC Diseases Director Defers to States in Reporting Number of Patients Under Investigation for Coronavirus

The director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases said Tuesday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is “no longer reporting the number of patients under investigation” (PUI) for the coronavirus.

It has stopped since more testing is being done in the states, which are reporting the results quickly.

Dr. Nancy Messonnier said during the press briefing:

I just want to mention that we are no longer reporting the number of PUIs, or patients under investigation, nor those who have tested negative. With more and more testing done at states, these numbers would not be representative of the testing being done nationally. States are reporting results quickly and even — states are reporting results quickly and, in the event of a discrepancy between CDC and state case counts, the state case counts should always be considered more up to date.

When asked whether CDC would still be aggregating the testing being done by public health labs to determine national figures for the number of tests conducted on PUIs, Messonnier said she would “correct that misunderstanding.”

She continued:

Of course, we will be aggregating data on a daily basis and will have daily case counts up on our website. What I meant to comment on is that sometimes our numbers come up on our website by noon, but when there’s a case that’s reported from a state at 5:00, we don’t go back and reupdate our numbers. It waits until the next day.

We update your numbers every day. We are certainly going to be aggregating national numbers. We are certainly going to be providing a national and state specific picture of what’s going on, but sometimes you all in the media are covering individual cases that are being reported that aren’t on our counts yet because we’re, again, we’re updating them only once a day. It’s just otherwise really difficult to continue to update the numbers when basically cases are getting confirmed and reported all night long. So, definitely going to be providing national data and state level data. But, if you see, for example, a news report from the state that’s coming out in half an hour, we’re not going to go back and reupdate the numbers that came up on CDC’s website at noon.

Handwashing is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of germs. What you need to know about handwashing: https://t.co/UyYggQjM9T pic.twitter.com/40UeHzhwg9

— CDC (@CDCgov) March 4, 2020

Messonnier stressed that many states are providing testing now and reporting results from their respective jurisdictions.

“While these results will be confirmed at CDC, the state and local health departments are taking public health actions based on these presumptive positives,” she said. “And CDC is counting these as cases. We would be updating our online case count on weekdays by noon.”

As of Wednesday at noon, CDC reported the total cases of COVID-19, the infection caused by the novel coronavirus, at 80; the total deaths at 9; and states reporting cases at 13.

However, as Breitbart News reported after noon on Wednesday, the total number of fatalities in the U.S. grew to 11, with another death in the state of Washington, and one in California.

Of the cases in the U.S. reported by CDC as of Wednesday at noon, 24 are travel-related, 16 were spread person-to-person, and 40 are under investigation.