“The data is currently unstable, outside of daily hospital admissions, due to inconsistent reports and incomplete data during holidays; there will be an ‘increase’ in case and death reports as the reports reach them,” said the task force in several reports sent to state officials dated December 27 and obtained by CNN.
“The east and west coasts, Sunbelt, Tennessee and West Virginia were in the midst of a winter wave, so it will be difficult to see the wave over the ongoing deterioration of the current,” the reports say.
And while there has been improvement in cases “in most states in the Upper Midwest, Northern Plains and Rocky Mountain,” the reports suggested that “virus levels are still high and any post-holiday increases will be evident” in those places.
Most states, the reports say, “are at a high level for test cases and positivity, and the risk of restarting local epidemics remains high.”
The reports, which the White House has sent to states every week for the past 28 weeks, offer the government’s most naked and crude assessment of the state of the pandemic, sometimes at odds with President Donald Trump’s messages.
Some of the reports obtained by CNN provided this harsh warning: “No public meeting without a mask is safe and no private internal meeting is safe without all members fully masked, unless all members are actively taking the same precautions and regularly testing negative. “
And the report from another state put it in simple terms: “Masks and the requirements for them have been shown to reduce transmission; promote the use of masks as a way to reopen local businesses and reenergize the economy.”
The task force recommended an aggressive increase in testing in states like Georgia, where there was an “unstable plateau in new cases, but an increase in test positivity and a significant increase in new hospital admissions.”
With many Americans ignoring calls from public health officials to avoid meeting with multiple families over Christmas, the task force recommended in a state report that authorities “increase messages about the importance of testing, especially for those who attend meetings between families “.
Colleges and universities that expect students to return for the winter semester, the task force told several states, “should routinely test all students weekly.”
There should be “continuous aggressive testing in nursing homes,” said one report, “along with the rapid immunization of COVID” for residents of long-term care facilities.
As states began to roll out vaccines, the task force also suggested to a state that it considered prioritizing frontline workers and age residents “to save as many lives as possible.” Another report emphasized the importance of “careful planning, efficient implementation and transparent and balanced messages about the state’s vaccination campaign”, praising states that have launched online vaccine-specific panels.
“Given the vaccine’s hesitation, especially among minority groups, the continued active encouragement by the governor and health officials and potentially televised immunizations will be useful,” said a report.
Some states have chosen not to request the reports, CNN found, but others are now taking that step further.
This week, California was the state with the most new cases per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Tennessee, Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Indiana, West Virginia, Nevada, Delaware and Mississippi in the top 10.
Oklahoma led with the highest test positivity rate, over 20.1%, followed by Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee, Missouri, Virginia, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska and Utah in the top 10.
Arizona has the highest number of Covid-19 hospital admissions per 100 beds, according to reports, followed by Arkansas, Maryland, Oklahoma, California, Kentucky, Georgia, District of Columbia, Pennsylvania and New Mexico in the top 10.
And South Dakota has the highest number of new deaths per 100,000 this week, followed by Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Iowa, West Virginia, New Mexico, Arizona, Alabama, Nevada and Indiana in the top 10.