DC Health responds to probe from council members on COVID-19 data – WTOP

D.C's health director has responded to a probe from the D.C. council to investigate why the health department didnt update its COVID-19 data to the Centers for Disease Control for almost two weeks.

The Districts health director has responded to calls from the D.C. council to investigate why the health department didnt report its COVID-19 data to the Centers for Disease Control for almost two weeks.

Six members of the D.C. Council last week wrote a letter calling for an investigation after D.C.s health department didnt update COVID-19 data to the CDC from April 27 to May 8.

DC Health director Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt said in a letter that D.C. had been providing manual and automated reports to the CDC. She said that for those two weeks starting April 27, the manual reporting from D.C. Health to the CDC was stopped; she said its back in sync.

The council also requested that D.C. Health increase the frequency of its posts on its own website for better public planning.

Nesbitt said that they wont be changing that, citing a high degree of burnout from public health workers.

The current public health workforce is experiencing a high degree of psychological stress, commonly referred to as burnout, having experienced over two years of 12+-hour workdays, attacks both verbal and physical on public health professionals, and significant misinformation about public health and our work. In response to that, and shifting goals of the pandemic response, public health agencies throughout the United States have reoriented how they share data to effectively inform the public of their risk without straining an already reduced public health workforce, Nesbitt said.

She said they switched to the new reporting process in March and report a full week of data from each Wednesday through Tuesday.

Nesbitt said the request from the council to report data from Wednesday through Monday would not improve the publics ability to understand their public health risk.

Like WTOP on Facebook and follow WTOP on Twitter and Instagram to engage in conversation about this article and others.

Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

2022 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

Continue reading here:

DC Health responds to probe from council members on COVID-19 data - WTOP