A task force comprised of scientists and data specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working with hospitals nationwide to improve Covid-19 reporting. The group is asking hospitals to report numbers of patients who go to the facility because they have Covid-19 and separate those from individuals who go in for other reasons and test positive after being admitted, the two officials said.

The administration’s goal is to get a more accurate sense of Covid-19’s impact across the country and whether the virus is causing severe disease. Senior Biden health officials have increasingly relied on hospitalization numbers, rather than case counts, to determine how to respond to the virus as well as the efficacy of the vaccines. Lower hospitalization rates could inform the administration’s thinking on public health measures such as masking. More accurate Covid-19 numbers also could provide a better picture of the strain on hospitals and which resources they might need during surges…

“You need a panel of experts to review the cases to adjudicate if a hospitalization is for a person who came in for Covid or with Covid,” Topol said. “It’s not something that is coded in the chart. A lot of people will say an individual came in with Covid, but it was actually the Covid that exacerbated the lung or heart disease.”