US likely 'dramatically undercounting' current COVID-19 resurgence, experts say

Since last summer, dozens of states, alongside the federal agencies, have opted to scale back on regular COVID-19 data reporting.

Although officials have been warning for weeks of an impending coronavirus resurgence across the country, health experts say it is impossible to know exactly how widespread the nation’s latest resurgence may actually be, given the declining availability of COVID-19 data.

"An effective public health response depends on high quality, real time data," said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor. "Underreporting, driven by changes in testing behavior, lack of public interest and severely underfunded local public health departments, create a perfect storm of misleading case counts and hospitalizations."

Since last summer, dozens of states, along with federal agencies, have opted to scale back on regular COVID-19 data reporting. A dwindling number of states still offer daily COVID-19 data reports, with most now moving to an alternate-day schedule or even to a weekly schedule.

"With changing case definitions for hospitalizations, decreased testing, and increased use of at-home rapid tests, data on COVID-19 in the U.S. has become increasingly hard to interpret," Sam Scarpino, the vice president of pathogen surveillance at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute, told ABC News.