To get COVID-19 funding, NC officials must give more data on tests, deaths, recoveries
North Carolina’s health department is slated to receive $25 million to expand COVID-19 testing. But that funding comes with strings attached.
A relief package, passed unanimously by the General Assembly Saturday and signed by Gov. Roy Cooper Monday, outlines how North Carolina will spend $1.57 billion of federal funding, including millions for the Department of Health and Human Services.
One provision in the law earmarks funds to aid DHHS in building capacity for testing — including antibody testing — for the novel coronavirus. It also expands contact tracing and research, data tools and analysis to support predictions, surveillance and response to COVID-19.
In order to receive that money, however, DHHS will need to release the following data:
- The number of positive and negative COVID-19 tests.
- Information about vendors providing those tests, including the cost of a test.
- Recovery rates.
- Hospital discharges, including the underlying conditions of COVID-19 patients.
- “Comprehensive reporting” on deaths, including percentage of patients diagnosed with severe conditions prior to contracting the virus, as well as what conditions deaths were attributed to.
DHHS has not set a timeline for fulfilling the requirements.
But the agency has been working on releasing data that would show what conditions are risk factors for patients, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is developing a way to estimate the number of COVID-19 recoveries, DHHS communications manager Kelly Haight said in an email.
“When that is finalized by the CDC we will use their calculation and post an estimated number,” Haight said.
Only the first three data points are required to be released on the agency’s online COVID-19 dashboard, according to the law.
“We know that additional health data gathered will help better inform both the governor’s office and the General Assembly in how we best go forward in tackling the virus,” Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, a Raleigh Democrat, said in a phone interview. “I think the requirements that have been set out are not unreasonable. But at the same time, it’s important to remember that we have a decentralized system of gathering such information ... In many instances trying to gather that information will frankly take time.”
How long will it take?
Increasing testing and expanding contract tracing — when county health departments work to track the spread of a disease by identifying who may have come in contact with an infected person — are both on the agency’s list of data points it’s watching to determine whether the state has met its benchmarks for reopening.
When DHHS fulfills the five requirements outlined by the General Assembly, the agency will receive $25 million to aid those efforts.
“I think overall they will be able to get this done within a reasonable amount of time,” said Rep. Carla Cunningham, a Charlotte Democrat who is one of the chairs of the House’s COVID-19 health care working group.
The last two — hospital discharges and comprehensive reporting on deaths — might be more difficult to fulfill, said Cunningham, who is also a registered nurse.
“That’s going to be the most intensive thing that you have,” Cunningham said. “That’s going to take some work.”
But they are also the most important to Cunningham. She emphasized the benefit of identifying who the most high-risk populations are.
Julie Swann, an N.C. State University professor who has worked with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, concurred.
“People want to know who is at risk,” Swann said.
But with all of this, Swann said, the agency will have to work carefully to make sure it complies with federal law on medical privacy. And that could take additional time.
“Our data team will need to work with the health care providers and laboratories to develop a plan to obtain this information to ensure patient privacy can be protected,” Haight said.
