Friday, July 31, 2009

CDC changes weekly swine-flu report

This week's Centers for Disease Control report on the swine flu pandemic has changed and, to me, is much less useful. Now, for example, you cannot see the state-by-state breakdown of reported cases and deaths.

One line summarizes these data:
5,514 reported hospitalizations (first week reported)
353 deaths (vs. 302, one week ago)

To learn State data, you must find the link for state data and then search state-by-state, substantially increasing the amount of time to find useful data.

The result is, basically, to hide what's really going on in the United States from the casual viewer.

As of this week in Illinois, there have been 3,425 confirmed and probable cases of swine flu and 17 deaths.

Thumbs down to the CDC this week!

No comments: