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. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Improving COVID– 

5 19 Data Transparency Act’’. 


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1 SEC. 2. STANDARDIZED METHOD FOR HEALTH DEPART2 MENT REPORTING . 

3 (a) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 30 days after the 

4 date of enactment of this Act, the Director of the Centers 

5 for Disease Control and Prevention shall create a stand6 ardized method for State, Tribal, and local health depart7 ments to report to the Centers with respect to COVID– 

8 19 the following: 

9 (1) New confirmed and probable cases in the 

10 respective jurisdiction, including— 

11 (A) per capita rates by date; 

12 (B) the 7-day moving average; 

13 (C) disaggregation of the new cases, if 

14 known, by whether the cases are part of an 

15 identifiable outbreak versus community spread; 

16 and 

17 (D) the percentage of new cases 

18 epidemiologically linked to at least one other 

19 case. 

20 (2) Daily hospitalizations of patients in the re21 spective jurisdiction with a confirmed or presumed 

22 case of COVID–19, including— 

23 (A) per capita rates by date; and 

24 (B) the 7-day moving average. 

25 (3) The percentage of hospital beds occupied by 

26 such patients. 


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1 (4) Daily numbers of such patients in the inten2 sive care unit. 

3 (5) Daily numbers of such patients on ventila4 tors. 

5 (6) How long such patients have been in the 

6 hospital. 

7 (7) Trends in emergency departments of pa8 tients with COVID-like illness and influenza-like ill9 ness. 

10 (8) Daily numbers of diagnostic and serological 

11 tests administered for SARS–CoV–2 with respect to 

12 patients in the respective jurisdiction, disaggregated 

13 by— 

14 (A) the type of test; 

15 (B) the testing positivity rate of each type 

16 of test, including a 7-day moving average; and 

17 (C) testing per capita rates by date for 

18 each type of test, including a 7-day moving av19 erage. 

20 (9) The sensitivity and specificity of each such 

21 type of test. 

22 (10) Daily numbers and percentages of contacts 

23 traced with respect to patients in the respective ju24 risdiction and the percentages of such contacts who 

25 know each other. 


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1 (11) The rate of transmission of SARS–CoV–2 

2 in the respective jurisdiction. 

3 (12) Daily numbers of deaths of individuals 

4 with a confirmed or probable case of COVID–19 and 

5 per capita rates of such deaths, with a 7-day moving 

6 average. 

7 (13) Daily averages, and 7-day moving aver8 ages, of turnaround time for diagnostic tests for 

9 COVID–19— 

10 (A) from the time of specimen collection to 

11 reporting; and 

12 (B) from the time of specimen collection to 

13 isolation of confirmed cases. 

14 (14) Institutions in the respective jurisdiction 

15 with major outbreaks of COVID–19, including any 

16 such nursing homes, prisons, schools, and 

17 meatpacking plants. 

18 (15) A list of— 

19 (A) long-term care and other congregate 

20 facilities (including homeless shelters and cor21 rectional facilities) and essential workplaces (in22 cluding meatpacking plants) with outbreaks of 

23 COVID–19 cases; and 


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1 (B) the numbers of deaths of residents (as 

2 applicable) and staff of such facilities and work3 places. 

4 (16) A weekly percentage of residents in the re5 spective jurisdiction wearing masks correctly in pub6 lic indoor settings, based on direct observation or se7 curity camera analysis, by a standard, consistent 

8 method. 

9 (17) The weekly percentage of new confirmed 

10 and probable cases among quarantined contacts. 

11 (18) Daily numbers of new confirmed and prob12 able cases of COVID–19 among health care workers 

13 that are not confirmed to have been contracted out14 side of the workplace. 

15 (b) DISAGGREGATION REQUIRED.—The Director of 

16 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shall en17 sure that the standardized method of reporting under sub18 section (a) requires the disaggregation of data by gender, 

19 age, cohort, race, and ethnicity. 

20 (c) POSTING BY CDC.—The Director of the Centers 

21 for Disease Control and Prevention shall— 

22 (1) post the information described in para23 graphs (1) through (19) of subsection (a), to the ex24 tent such information is in the possession of the 

25 Centers, on the public website of the Centers, except 


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1 that such posting shall exclude any individually iden2 tifiable information; and 

3 (2) to the extent feasible disaggregate such in4 formation by State, Tribal, and local jurisdiction. 

5 (d) UPDATES.—The Director of the Centers for Dis6 ease Control and Prevention— 

7 (1) shall, as appropriate, periodically update the 

8 method posted under subsection (a); and 

9 (2) may revise and expand the reporting cat10 egories listed in such subsection. 

11 (e) STATE.—In this section, the term ‘‘State’’ in12 cludes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of 

13 Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Virgin Is14 lands, Guam, and American Samoa. 

15 SEC. 3. TELEVISED REPORTING OF MORBIDITY AND MOR16 TALITY WEEKLY REPORT. 

17 Each week, the Director of the Centers for Disease 

18 Control and Prevention shall— 

19 (1) deliver a televised presentation of its Mor20 bidity and Mortality Weekly Report; 

21 (2) make the presentation open to the media; 

22 and 

23 (3) assign a career civil servant to deliver the 

24 presentation. 


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1 SEC. 4. MODELING TRANSPARENCY. 

2 (a) ENSURING REPRODUCIBILITY.—The Secretary of 

3 Health and Human Services, acting through the Director 

4 of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shall 

5 ensure that any COVID–19 modeling that is conducted 

6 or supported by the Centers is fully reproducible by shar7 ing, to the extent permissible and appropriate, the infor8 mation needed to reproduce such modeling, including any 

9 modeling code. 

10 (b) REPORT.—The Secretary of Health and Human 

11 Services shall enter into an arrangement with the National 

12 Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to pre13 pare, not later than 6 months after the date of enactment 

14 of this Act, and publish a report on— 

15 (1) the sources of data and information relied 

16 on by entities for COVID–19 modeling; 

17 (2) the reasons why the Institute for Health 

18 Metrics, Johns Hopkins University, The COVID 

19 Tracking Project, and 1Point3Acres decided to start 

20 COVID–19 modeling; 

21 (3) the coordination and financial support that 

22 has been provided by the Federal Government for 

23 COVID–19 modeling to entites conducting COVID– 

24 19 modeling that have been widely relied upon; and 

25 (4) what can be done to ensure the continuation 

26 and availability of reliable COVID–19 modeling. 


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1 SEC. 5. IMPROVED CASE REPORTING. 

2 Section 3001(c)(5) of the Public Health Service Act 

3 (42 U.S.C. 300jj–11(c)(5)) is amended— 

4 (1) by redesignating subparagraph (E) as sub5 paragraph (F); 

6 (2) in subparagraph (F), as redesignated, after 

7 ‘‘subparagraph (D)’’ by inserting ‘‘or (E)’’; and 

8 (3) after executing the redesignation made by 

9 paragraph (1), by inserting after subparagraph (D) 

10 the following: 

11 ‘‘(E) ADDITIONAL CONDITIONS OF CER12 TIFICATION.—Not later than 1 year after the 

13 date of enactment of the COVID–19 Data 

14 Transparency Act, the Secretary, through no15 tice and comment rulemaking, shall require, as 

16 a condition of certification and maintenance of 

17 certification for programs maintained or recog18 nized under this paragraph, consistent with 

19 other conditions and requirements under this 

20 title, that the health information technology de21 veloper or entity provides assurances satisfac22 tory to the Secretary that the health informa23 tion technology is designed to effectuate the 

24 automated generation and transmission of re25 ports of possible reportable conditions from 


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1 electronic health records to public health agen2 cies for review and action.’’. 

Æ 


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