Becker's Hospital Review

87 FINANCE CMO / CARE DELIVERY Why COVID Tracking Project stopped reporting data March 7 By Mackenzie Bean and Gabrielle Masson T he COVID Tracking Project ended its daily updates and data compilation March 7 and the project will officially come to a close in May. e Atlantic launched e COVID Tracking Project on March 7, 2020. e volunteer orga- nization collected and published daily data on COVID-19 testing and patient outcomes for all 50 states, five U.S. territories and Washington, D.C. Over the past year, more than 400 peo- ple have contributed to this effort, with some members working more than 300 shis. In a Feb. 1 article announcing the Project's end date, founders Erin Kissane and Alexis Mad- rigal said the group originally planned to only perform its data compilation work for a few weeks. e Project's main goal was to increase scrutiny of federal sources and encourage public health agencies to publish more compre- hensive COVID-19 data. "Although substantial gaps and complexities remain, we have seen persuasive evidence that the CDC and HHS are now both able and will- ing to take on the country's massive deficits in public health data infrastructure, and to offer the best available data and science communi- cation in the interim," Ms. Kissane, the Project's managing editor, and Mr. Madrigal, a reporter at e Atlantic, said in the Feb. 1 post. ey pointed to federal actions — including the CDC Vaccine Tracker site, which launched Dec. 20, and the incorporation of county-level testing data in the agency's COVID Tracker site — as positive steps toward improving national public health data efforts. Documentation, analysis and archival work will continue until May. e Project is also publishing detailed guidance for users look- ing for sources to replace the data, as well as gap analyses noting where replacement data still doesn't exist. "Our project contributors have poured thou- sands of hours of their lives into this crisis response — many of them for almost a year. ey've borrowed time from other work, quit jobs, postponed graduate degrees and missed time with their families," Ms. Kissane and Mr. Madrigal said. "It's time to release these brilliant people back to their lives." n Woman dies 2 months after contracting COVID-19 from donor lungs By Erica Carbajal A woman with chronic obstruc- tive lung disease contract- ed COVID-19 from a pair of donor lungs and died 61 days after the transplant — the first confirmed donor-to-recipient transmission of COVID-19 in the U.S., according to a case report published Feb. 10 in the American Journal of Transplantation. The transplant was performed at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor. The thoracic surgeon who prepared the donor lungs for implantation and who performed the procedure also tested positive for the coronavirus, while 10 other health- care personnel present during the procedure were negative. Polymerase chain reaction testing was performed before the procedure. The donor, a woman who died from se- vere brain injury after a car accident, tested negative 48 hours before pro- curement, and the recipient tested negative 12 hours before the trans- plant. Three days post-transplant, the recipient developed a fever and hy- potension, while imaging suggested a lung infection. Physicians sent a bronchoalveolar la- vage fluid sample from the recipient, which obtains specimens from deep- er in the lower respiratory tract than the nasal swabs used for PCR testing. The sample came back positive, as did a lung fluid sample taken from the donor during procurement. At the same time, a second PCR test was per- formed on the recipient and did not detect a COVID-19 infection. Genetic sequencing confirmed the do- nor lungs as the source of the recipient and surgeon's COVID-19 infection. "Transplant centers and organ pro- curement organizations should per- form SARS-CoV-2 testing of lower respiratory tract specimens from potential lung donors, and consider enhanced personal protective equip- ment for healthcare workers involved in lung procurement and transplanta- tion," the physicians said. n

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