Johns Hopkins University is planning to scale back its COVID data dashboard and will only update global case, death and vaccine data daily, rather than every hour, theWall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The move comes as data reporting is being reduced in the U.S. and elsewhere, making it harder for researchers to access up-to-date numbers. The number of people now testing for COVID at home, for example, has distorted numbers as their data is not being collected. The Johns Hopkins platform will also start pulling vaccination-related data from other sources, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rather than trying to collect it directly from local health agencies, its operators said. “We have seen a dramatic shift in the way that state and local governments not only collect this data but share it publicly,” Beth Blauer, associate vice provost for public-sector innovation at the Baltimore university and data lead for the school’s Coronavirus Resource Center, told the paper. “That deeply constrains the way that we can actually report.”
