Current Epidemic Growth Status
The Current Epidemic Growth Status tool provides real-time updates of COVID-19 epidemic growth—whether infections are increasing, decreasing or remaining stable. For example, in May 2024 these real-time estimates showed that COVID-19 infections were growing or likely growing in 19 states and territories. By late July, COVID-19 was growing or likely growing in 36 states and territories. In the fall, the CDC will resume epidemic growth status assessments for COVID-19 and influenza. Having insight into such trends can help both public health professionals and policymakers prepare and respond to growing disease infections and epidemics.
Wastewater-Informed Forecasts
Monitoring pathogens in wastewater can help track community spread of diseases. Infected individuals shed viruses into wastewater that travels through the sewage system. Wastewater samples can be tested to measure the levels of a virus. Using wastewater has advantages as both symptomatic and asymptomatic people, and those with or without access to health care, shed viruses into wastewater. Such monitoring can be implemented in most communities since nearly 80% of U.S. households are served by municipal wastewater collection systems.
During the 2023-24 respiratory disease season, the CDC used innovative modeling approaches to combine data from the National Wastewater Surveillance System with hospital data to forecast state-level hospital admissions for COVID-19. The approach proved to be a feasible method of forecasting COVID-19 hospital admissions and provided proof of concept for future work.
Measles Outbreak Modeling
Outbreaks of measles continue to occur across the U.S. with a median of 72 new cases reported each year. So far this year, as of August 2024, a total of 236 measles cases were reported by 29 jurisdictions. A portion of those cases occurred during a measles outbreak in a shelter in Chicago in March.
Just days after the first Chicago shelter measles case was reported, the CDC’s measles modeling task force began working on dynamic models. The team produced forecasts and assessed the impact of interventions implemented by the Chicago Department of Public Health. The models set expectations about the outbreak and demonstrated the importance of early public health interventions - with a 69% chance of an outbreak of 100 or more cases had there been no intervention compared with only a 1% chance when those interventions were deployed.
Measles outbreaks are expensive. The median cost per case of measles is $32,805. Proper intervention, informed by analytical modeling, may have greatly reduced both the amount of illness and dollars spent in Chicago.
Federal Disease Forecasting and Outbreak Analytic Actions
The CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics was established in 2021 to use data, modeling and analytics to respond to outbreaks in real time and drive effective decision-making during outbreak responses. During NCSL’s seminar, subject matter experts from CFA provided an overview of information on the Insight Net initiative which is made up of more than 100 private, public, and academic partners. Insight Net partners are providing support to state and local public health leaders to build modeling and analytic capacity across the county. The network focuses on training, analytical tool development, and advancing the analysis and use of data on infectious disease spread.
CFA’s disease forecasts help to transform data into decisions that can help to prevent disease outbreaks, and more effectively and efficiently mitigate outbreaks and epidemics that do occur.
This project is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as part of a financial assistance award totaling $295,000 with 100% funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, CDC/HHS or the U.S. government.