It is clear that COVID-19 (SARS-CoV2) infection will be endemic. It has also become clear that contact tracing for this illness has been abandoned. There are highly effective vaccines and oral therapies have been and are being developed. The required reporting of all demographic information for people diagnosed with this disease is particularly onerous and time consuming with no obvious benefit. If contact tracing is not being performed in a very timely matter (within 24 hours) the utility vanishes. While large labs likely have this process automated, smaller labs in physician offices or small clinics do not. It does not make sense to require the reporting of information that is not being utilized. Furthermore, with the availability of OTC COVID-19 tests with no reporting mechanism, these cases are never tracked or acted upon. How does it make sense to track some while knowingly missing the OTC positive cases?

As a better option, I propose the reporting of COVID-19 cases follow the same reporting as influenza did a few years ago. Labs report bulk positives and negatives. A modification would be that COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization be reported with all demographics while all other cases are reported as bulk numbers. Medical offices do not need to be bogged down with administrative work that is not being used in a significantly worthwhile manner.