Tensions have risen between the city council and health department since early May, when the department stopped reporting cases to the CDC for nearly two weeks.
In a council meeting Friday, Chairman Phil Mendelson expressed unease — which many on the council share — about D.C.'s practice of publishing a modest amount of data on the virus once a week, rather than every weekday as the health department did for nearly two years.Mendelson noted that the city’s reported rate of new weekly cases per 100,000 residents shot up from 168 to 298 over the course of one week lately — its highest level since the January omicron surge.
“experienced over two years of 12+ hour workdays, attacks — both verbal and physical — on public health professionals, and significant misinformation about public health and our work. In response to that, and shifting goals of the pandemic response, public health agencies throughout the United States have reoriented how they share data to effectively inform the public of their risk without straining an already reduced public health workforce.
Christina Henderson asked at what level of cases the city’s schools might require masks again. Ashley said there was no imminent plan to reinstate the requirement. Donahue noted, “From the beginning, we’ve not relied on a single metric or even a binding trigger that might be a set of metrics.” Donahue also said he was not prepared to answer other questions Allen submitted in advance, including the number of D.C. schools that have had to simulcast classroom lessons because more than a quarter of students in the class are home quarantined, and the portion of preschoolers who participate in recommended weekly coronavirus testing.
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