Improving COVID–19 Data Transparency Act

I 116TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION H. R. 8073 To require the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create a standardized method for State, Tribal, and local health departments to report to the Centers with respect to COVID–19, and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AUGUST 21, 2020 Mr. BEYER (for himself, Ms. SEWELL of Alabama, Mr. CONNOLLY, Mr. VARGAS, Ms. PORTER, Mr. TAKANO, Mr. SABLAN, Ms. SHERRILL, Mr. PASCRELL, Mr. DEUTCH, and Ms. GABBARD) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce A BILL To require the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create a standardized method for State, Tribal, and local health departments to report to the Centers with respect to COVID–19, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Improving COVID– 4 19 Data Transparency Act’’. 5 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:39 Sep 03, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H8073.IH H8073 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 2 •HR 8073 IH SEC. 2. STANDARDIZED METHOD FOR HEALTH DEPART- 1 MENT REPORTING . 2 (a) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 30 days after the 3 date of enactment of this Act, the Director of the Centers 4 for Disease Control and Prevention shall create a stand- 5 ardized method for State, Tribal, and local health depart- 6 ments to report to the Centers with respect to COVID– 7 19 the following: 8 (1) New confirmed and probable cases in the 9 respective jurisdiction, including— 10 (A) per capita rates by date; 11 (B) the 7-day moving average; 12 (C) disaggregation of the new cases, if 13 known, by whether the cases are part of an 14 identifiable outbreak versus community spread; 15 and 16 (D) the percentage of new cases 17 epidemiologically linked to at least one other 18 case. 19 (2) Daily hospitalizations of patients in the re- 20 spective jurisdiction with a confirmed or presumed 21 case of COVID–19, including— 22 (A) per capita rates by date; and 23 (B) the 7-day moving average. 24 (3) The percentage of hospital beds occupied by 25 such patients. 26 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:39 Sep 03, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H8073.IH H8073 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 3 •HR 8073 IH (4) Daily numbers of such patients in the inten- 1 sive care unit. 2 (5) Daily numbers of such patients on ventila- 3 tors. 4 (6) How long such patients have been in the 5 hospital. 6 (7) Trends in emergency departments of pa- 7 tients with COVID-like illness and influenza-like ill- 8 ness. 9 (8) Daily numbers of diagnostic and serological 10 tests administered for SARS–CoV–2 with respect to 11 patients in the respective jurisdiction, disaggregated 12 by— 13 (A) the type of test; 14 (B) the testing positivity rate of each type 15 of test, including a 7-day moving average; and 16 (C) testing per capita rates by date for 17 each type of test, including a 7-day moving av- 18 erage. 19 (9) The sensitivity and specificity of each such 20 type of test. 21 (10) Daily numbers and percentages of contacts 22 traced with respect to patients in the respective ju- 23 risdiction and the percentages of such contacts who 24 know each other. 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:39 Sep 03, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H8073.IH H8073 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 4 •HR 8073 IH (11) The rate of transmission of SARS–CoV–2 1 in the respective jurisdiction. 2 (12) Daily numbers of deaths of individuals 3 with a confirmed or probable case of COVID–19 and 4 per capita rates of such deaths, with a 7-day moving 5 average. 6 (13) Daily averages, and 7-day moving aver- 7 ages, of turnaround time for diagnostic tests for 8 COVID–19— 9 (A) from the time of specimen collection to 10 reporting; and 11 (B) from the time of specimen collection to 12 isolation of confirmed cases. 13 (14) Institutions in the respective jurisdiction 14 with major outbreaks of COVID–19, including any 15 such nursing homes, prisons, schools, and 16 meatpacking plants. 17 (15) A list of— 18 (A) long-term care and other congregate 19 facilities (including homeless shelters and cor- 20 rectional facilities) and essential workplaces (in- 21 cluding meatpacking plants) with outbreaks of 22 COVID–19 cases; and 23 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:39 Sep 03, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H8073.IH H8073 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 5 •HR 8073 IH (B) the numbers of deaths of residents (as 1 applicable) and staff of such facilities and work- 2 places. 3 (16) A weekly percentage of residents in the re- 4 spective jurisdiction wearing masks correctly in pub- 5 lic indoor settings, based on direct observation or se- 6 curity camera analysis, by a standard, consistent 7 method. 8 (17) The weekly percentage of new confirmed 9 and probable cases among quarantined contacts. 10 (18) Daily numbers of new confirmed and prob- 11 able cases of COVID–19 among health care workers 12 that are not confirmed to have been contracted out- 13 side of the workplace. 14 (b) DISAGGREGATION REQUIRED.—The Director of 15 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shall en- 16 sure that the standardized method of reporting under sub- 17 section (a) requires the disaggregation of data by gender, 18 age, cohort, race, and ethnicity. 19 (c) POSTING BY CDC.—The Director of the Centers 20 for Disease Control and Prevention shall— 21 (1) post the information described in para- 22 graphs (1) through (19) of subsection (a), to the ex- 23 tent such information is in the possession of the 24 Centers, on the public website of the Centers, except 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:39 Sep 03, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H8073.IH H8073 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 6 •HR 8073 IH that such posting shall exclude any individually iden- 1 tifiable information; and 2 (2) to the extent feasible disaggregate such in- 3 formation by State, Tribal, and local jurisdiction. 4 (d) UPDATES.—The Director of the Centers for Dis- 5 ease Control and Prevention— 6 (1) shall, as appropriate, periodically update the 7 method posted under subsection (a); and 8 (2) may revise and expand the reporting cat- 9 egories listed in such subsection. 10 (e) STATE.—In this section, the term ‘‘State’’ in- 11 cludes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of 12 Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Virgin Is- 13 lands, Guam, and American Samoa. 14 SEC. 3. TELEVISED REPORTING OF MORBIDITY AND MOR- 15 TALITY WEEKLY REPORT. 16 Each week, the Director of the Centers for Disease 17 Control and Prevention shall— 18 (1) deliver a televised presentation of its Mor- 19 bidity and Mortality Weekly Report; 20 (2) make the presentation open to the media; 21 and 22 (3) assign a career civil servant to deliver the 23 presentation. 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:39 Sep 03, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H8073.IH H8073 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 7 •HR 8073 IH SEC. 4. MODELING TRANSPARENCY. 1 (a) ENSURING REPRODUCIBILITY.—The Secretary of 2 Health and Human Services, acting through the Director 3 of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shall 4 ensure that any COVID–19 modeling that is conducted 5 or supported by the Centers is fully reproducible by shar- 6 ing, to the extent permissible and appropriate, the infor- 7 mation needed to reproduce such modeling, including any 8 modeling code. 9 (b) REPORT.—The Secretary of Health and Human 10 Services shall enter into an arrangement with the National 11 Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to pre- 12 pare, not later than 6 months after the date of enactment 13 of this Act, and publish a report on— 14 (1) the sources of data and information relied 15 on by entities for COVID–19 modeling; 16 (2) the reasons why the Institute for Health 17 Metrics, Johns Hopkins University, The COVID 18 Tracking Project, and 1Point3Acres decided to start 19 COVID–19 modeling; 20 (3) the coordination and financial support that 21 has been provided by the Federal Government for 22 COVID–19 modeling to entites conducting COVID– 23 19 modeling that have been widely relied upon; and 24 (4) what can be done to ensure the continuation 25 and availability of reliable COVID–19 modeling. 26 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:39 Sep 03, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H8073.IH H8073 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 8 •HR 8073 IH SEC. 5. IMPROVED CASE REPORTING. 1 Section 3001(c)(5) of the Public Health Service Act 2 (42 U.S.C. 300jj–11(c)(5)) is amended— 3 (1) by redesignating subparagraph (E) as sub- 4 paragraph (F); 5 (2) in subparagraph (F), as redesignated, after 6 ‘‘subparagraph (D)’’ by inserting ‘‘or (E)’’; and 7 (3) after executing the redesignation made by 8 paragraph (1), by inserting after subparagraph (D) 9 the following: 10 ‘‘(E) ADDITIONAL CONDITIONS OF CER- 11 TIFICATION.—Not later than 1 year after the 12 date of enactment of the COVID–19 Data 13 Transparency Act, the Secretary, through no- 14 tice and comment rulemaking, shall require, as 15 a condition of certification and maintenance of 16 certification for programs maintained or recog- 17 nized under this paragraph, consistent with 18 other conditions and requirements under this 19 title, that the health information technology de- 20 veloper or entity provides assurances satisfac- 21 tory to the Secretary that the health informa- 22 tion technology is designed to effectuate the 23 automated generation and transmission of re- 24 ports of possible reportable conditions from 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:39 Sep 03, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H8073.IH H8073 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 9 •HR 8073 IH electronic health records to public health agen- 1 cies for review and action.’’. 2 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:39 Sep 03, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\H8073.IH H8073 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS