Title: Improving COVID–19 Data Transparency Act
Policy area: Health

Summary:
Improving COVID-19 Data Transparency Act
This bill requires the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to take certain actions with respect to reporting and modeling COVID-19 (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019) data. It also requires health information technology, as a condition of certification by HHS, to automatically generate and transmit reports of possible reportable conditions from electronic health records to public health agencies.
The CDC must standardize the reporting of COVID-19 data by governmental health departments, including information related to contact tracing and surveillance, hospital admissions and outcomes, outbreaks, and community compliance with preventive measures. The CDC must also post and periodically update this information on its website.
In addition, the CDC must provide sufficient information about federal COVID-19 models to allow them to be reproduced, and HHS must enter into an agreement with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to study issues related to COVID-19 modeling, including the data sources used in the models.
The CDC must also deliver a weekly televised presentation that is open to the media on its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication that reports surveillance statistics and other public health information and recommendations.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 8073 Introduced in House (IH)]

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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 Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Improving COVID-19 Data Transparency 
Act''.

SEC. 2. STANDARDIZED METHOD FOR HEALTH DEPARTMENT REPORTING .

    (a) In General.--Not later than 30 days after the date of enactment 
of this Act, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention shall create a standardized method for State, Tribal, and 
local health departments to report to the Centers with respect to 
COVID-19 the following:
            (1) New confirmed and probable cases in the respective 
        jurisdiction, including--
                    (A) per capita rates by date;
                    (B) the 7-day moving average;
                    (C) disaggregation of the new cases, if known, by 
                whether the cases are part of an identifiable outbreak 
                versus community spread; and
                    (D) the percentage of new cases epidemiologically 
                linked to at least one other case.
            (2) Daily hospitalizations of patients in the respective 
        jurisdiction with a confirmed or presumed case of COVID-19, 
        including--
                    (A) per capita rates by date; and
                    (B) the 7-day moving average.
            (3) The percentage of hospital beds occupied by such 
        patients.
            (4) Daily numbers of such patients in the intensive care 
        unit.
            (5) Daily numbers of such patients on ventilators.
            (6) How long such patients have been in the hospital.
            (7) Trends in emergency departments of patients with COVID-
        like illness and influenza-like illness.
            (8) Daily numbers of diagnostic and serological tests 
        administered for SARS-CoV-2 with respect to patients in the 
        respective jurisdiction, disaggregated by--
                    (A) the type of test;
                    (B) the testing positivity rate of each type of 
                test, including a 7-day moving average; and
                    (C) testing per capita rates by date for each type 
                of test, including a 7-day moving average.
            (9) The sensitivity and specificity of each such type of 
        test.
            (10) Daily numbers and percentages of contacts traced with 
        respect to patients in the respective jurisdiction and the 
        percentages of such contacts who know each other.
            (11) The rate of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the 
        respective jurisdiction.
            (12) Daily numbers of deaths of individuals with a 
        confirmed or probable case of COVID-19 and per capita rates of 
        such deaths, with a 7-day moving average.
            (13) Daily averages, and 7-day moving averages, of 
        turnaround time for diagnostic tests for COVID-19--
                    (A) from the time of specimen collection to 
                reporting; and
                    (B) from the time of specimen collection to 
                isolation of confirmed cases.
            (14) Institutions in the respective jurisdiction with major 
        outbreaks of COVID-19, including any such nursing homes, 
        prisons, schools, and meatpacking plants.
            (15) A list of--
                    (A) long-term care and other congregate facilities 
                (including homeless shelters and correctional 
                facilities) and essential workplaces (including 
                meatpacking plants) with outbreaks of COVID-19 cases; 
                and
                    (B) the numbers of deaths of residents (as 
                applicable) and staff of such facilities and 
                workplaces.
            (16) A weekly percentage of residents in the respective 
        jurisdiction wearing masks correctly in public indoor settings, 
        based on direct observation or security camera analysis, by a 
        standard, consistent method.
            (17) The weekly percentage of new confirmed and probable 
        cases among quarantined contacts.
            (18) Daily numbers of new confirmed and probable cases of 
        COVID-19 among health care workers that are not confirmed to 
        have been contracted outside of the workplace.
    (b) Disaggregation Required.--The Director of the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention shall ensure that the standardized 
method of reporting under subsection (a) requires the disaggregation of 
data by gender, age, cohort, race, and ethnicity.
    (c) Posting by CDC.--The Director of the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention shall--
            (1) post the information described in paragraphs (1) 
        through (19) of subsection (a), to the extent such information 
        is in the possession of the Centers, on the public website of 
        the Centers, except that such posting shall exclude any 
        individually identifiable information; and
            (2) to the extent feasible disaggregate such information by 
        State, Tribal, and local jurisdiction.
    (d) Updates.--The Director of the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention--
            (1) shall, as appropriate, periodically update the method 
        posted under subsection (a); and
            (2) may revise and expand the reporting categories listed 
        in such subsection.
    (e) State.--In this section, the term ``State'' includes the 
District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Northern 
Mariana Islands, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa.

SEC. 3. TELEVISED REPORTING OF MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY WEEKLY REPORT.

    Each week, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention shall--
            (1) deliver a televised presentation of its Morbidity and 
        Mortality Weekly Report;
            (2) make the presentation open to the media; and
            (3) assign a career civil servant to deliver the 
        presentation.

SEC. 4. MODELING TRANSPARENCY.

    (a) Ensuring Reproducibility.--The Secretary of Health and Human 
Services, acting through the Director of the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention, shall ensure that any COVID-19 modeling that is 
conducted or supported by the Centers is fully reproducible by sharing, 
to the extent permissible and appropriate, the information needed to 
reproduce such modeling, including any modeling code.
    (b) Report.--The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall enter 
into an arrangement with the National Academies of Sciences, 
Engineering, and Medicine to prepare, not later than 6 months after the 
date of enactment of this Act, and publish a report on--
            (1) the sources of data and information relied on by 
        entities for COVID-19 modeling;
            (2) the reasons why the Institute for Health Metrics, Johns 
        Hopkins University, The COVID Tracking Project, and 
        1Point3Acres decided to start COVID-19 modeling;
            (3) the coordination and financial support that has been 
        provided by the Federal Government for COVID-19 modeling to 
        entites conducting COVID-19 modeling that have been widely 
        relied upon; and
            (4) what can be done to ensure the continuation and 
        availability of reliable COVID-19 modeling.

SEC. 5. IMPROVED CASE REPORTING.

    Section 3001(c)(5) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 
300jj-11(c)(5)) is amended--
            (1) by redesignating subparagraph (E) as subparagraph (F);
            (2) in subparagraph (F), as redesignated, after 
        ``subparagraph (D)'' by inserting ``or (E)''; and
            (3) after executing the redesignation made by paragraph 
        (1), by inserting after subparagraph (D) the following:
                    ``(E) Additional conditions of certification.--Not 
                later than 1 year after the date of enactment of the 
                COVID-19 Data Transparency Act, the Secretary, through 
                notice and comment rulemaking, shall require, as a 
                condition of certification and maintenance of 
                certification for programs maintained or recognized 
                under this paragraph, consistent with other conditions 
                and requirements under this title, that the health 
                information technology developer or entity provides 
                assurances satisfactory to the Secretary that the 
                health information technology is designed to effectuate 
                the automated generation and transmission of reports of 
                possible reportable conditions from electronic health 
                records to public health agencies for review and 
                action.''.
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