PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia health officials announced Wednesday they will no longer send reporters weekly updates on COVID-19 cases, three years after it began tracking the virus in the city.
For months on end beginning in March 2020, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health updated COVID-19 numbers seven days a week in online briefings, then a little less often, then the updates were only in press release form that went from daily to weekly.
Now, in a sign of the virus’s continued retreat, the weekly press releases are stopping, too.
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The city continues to compile data and put it online for those interested, but Department of Public Health Communications Director Jim Garrow says the data is showing little change week-to-week.
“The updates have gotten stale. People have reached a point where they know how to live with this in their life,” said Garrow.
He said the U.S. is moving to a part where the virus is part of our life now, but he stressed things could change — particularly if a new variant of the virus emerges.
“This very specifically does not mean the COVID pandemic is over,” he stressed.
He said the Department of Public Health could gear up again with more updates if that variant comes, but this clearly is a milestone in the pandemic.
“We probably have met a sort of stasis where things are just bubbling along. People are still getting sick, but we’re not seeing the huge spikes we did last winter or the previous summer,” he said.
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That fits the definition of an endemic, but Garrow declined to use that term. He says people should still take precautions, especially around the elderly for whom the virus can still be fatal.
COVID-19 data is still available at phila.gov/covid.