Imagine if every time you took a COVID-19 test at home, you could share that result to help paint a better picture of the virus in your community. That's the idea behind a new voluntary reporting system in the United States. It's an attempt to gather data from the millions of rapid tests people use privately, which otherwise go uncounted by official tracking systems.
Right now, we don't know what this effort has found. The report doesn't tell us how many people have participated, what their results were, or if any trends are showing up. The information is entirely self-reported by people who choose to share it, which means it might not represent everyone.
Because this is a brand-new and voluntary system, we have to be cautious. The data could be skewed—maybe only people with certain symptoms or concerns are reporting. There's no information yet on whether this data is reliable or useful for making public health decisions. It's an early step in trying to understand a gap in our knowledge, but its real value remains to be seen.