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State health departments in Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia told The Hill they don’t track location data.Utah tracks outbreaks and cases tied to workplaces and schools, but not restaurants or bars.Arizona, California, Delaware, Indiana, Oregon and Pennsylvania track infection locations, but don’t release it to the public.“The number of people getting COVID-19 from isolated, identifiable outbreaks, such as those in long term care facilities, is decreasing, and more people are contracting COVID-19 from being out and about in their community, such as when visiting restaurants and bars,” said Maggi Mumma, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health.Bars, indoor dining and gyms are still closed in most of New York and New Jersey, so there is no current data to track for those settings.But the state health departments also don’t release data on outbreaks or cases tied to other settings like childcare or retail stores.Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Wisconsin release the number of cases tied to outbreaks in the community but do not go into specifics about possible transmission sites.For example, Minnesota lists nearly 7,000 cases as being tied to "community" exposure, but that includes settings like restaurants, bars and workspaces.In Iowa, a state health department spokesperson said the agency is working on extracting and sharing this type of data on its website, while Maine would not say if they track by specific location.The remaining state health departments did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Hill and don’t have information about outbreaks or exposure settings on their websites.Several states said local health departments may be tracking infection locations even if the state is not.Experts said such a decentralized approach can miss outbreaks if local departments aren’t communicating with each other, meaning any data should be public.“I do think it would be very valuable for states to make that information public,” said Crystal Watson, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.“It helps us collectively get a better understanding as policymakers, as people trying to help in the response.
As said here by Jessie Hellmann and Nathaniel Weixel