Kentucky discontinues many COVID reporting measures as US public health emergency ends

The national public health emergency for COVID-19 has officially ended, and as of Friday, many of the metrics for tracking the virus, such as community levels and incidence rates, have been scrubbed from Kentucky’s coronavirus dashboard.

Going forward, the state will continue to make some measures available, though they will be significantly altered and reported much less frequently.

“We’ve come a long way,” Dr. Steven Stack, Kentucky’s public health commissioner, said during a news conference Thursday. Stack was referencing the recent news COVID-19 deaths around the world have fallen by 95% since the start of 2023, according to the World Health Organization.

Still, the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 1 million people in the U.S and nearly 7 million worldwide, according to figures from the WHO. In Kentucky, 18,588 people have lost their lives to the disease since the start of the pandemic three years ago.

Stack encouraged Kentuckians to stay up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines going forward. He noted nationwide, only 20% of people older than 18 and just 43% of people older than 65 have received a bivalent booster.

“Now the vast majority of people just need one dose, no matter how many previous doses you’ve had, once a year,” Stack said.

Also Thursday, shortly before the COVID-19 community level map was retired by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Gov. Andy Beshear noted every county in the state reported low levels of the disease as of the prior week, May 4.

In the past few weeks, weekly totals of new cases have hovered at about 1,000, with only a few counties reporting elevated levels of COVID-19.

Here’s a quick look at reporting measures that are no longer available:

• COVID-19 community levels: Though it has faced criticism, this metric from the CDC was used to shape ongoing public health guidance, including whether individuals in a county should mask up while indoors in public spaces. Ranging from low, medium and high, the CDC recommended universal masking at the highest COVID-19 community level. Levels were calculated using weekly totals of new infections and hospital admissions, along with weekly averages of COVID-occupied hospital beds. As of Friday, the CDC’s community level map was inactive on its website, and the Kentucky Department of Health had ceased using it.

• Incidence rate: Thursday, Stack announced the state map displaying virus incidence rate will be discontinued. The weekly rate was calculated by taking the total number of new cases reported in each county over the previous seven days, dividing by seven for a weekly average, dividing that number by the county’s population and finally multiplying by 100,000 to determine the incidence rate per 100,000 people.

Which COVID-19 metrics will stick around but change significantly? According to Stack, some state-specific measures, such as total cases by county and mortality count will continue to be updated monthly, a much less frequent rate than weekly.

Stack also said COVID-19 hospitalization data will only be collected by the federal government going forward. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has said hospitalization data will continue to be reported in some form until April 30, 2024, but weekly instead of daily as it has been.

Stack added that vaccination data will likely change “in the months ahead,” but did not go into detail.

Finally, the state public health commissioner noted the way the state reports COVID-19 deaths will also change going forward. Previously, Stack said, the state has been diligent about including only people who died from COVID-19 and not other causes. Going forward, that reporting process will be “mainstreamed” and “more normal.” In other words, much less rigorous.

That data will also be reported only once a month, Stack said.

“We would be wise to be mindful that COVID-19 is not gone and will not disappear,” Stack said Thursday, calling the pandemic a “once in a century, all of humanity event.”

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