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Submitted by the Whatcom County Health Department

Today the Whatcom County Health Department (WCHD) launched a new, interactive COVID-19 Data Dashboard with additional metrics now on display. WCHD partnered with the Washington State Department of Health to develop the dashboard to improve the way local COVID-19 data is shared and to allow for better comparisons with other Washington counties and statewide numbers. 

The data dashboard contains much of the same information that is currently provided on the WCHD COVID-19 page, such as epidemiological curves and cumulative case counts, but in an interactive format that allows users to more easily view detailed information. Among the new data points are daily testing numbers, positivity rate, and hospitalization data.

The data dashboard will be automatically updated daily between 2:00-4:00 pm and will be unavailable for approximately one hour during that time. Data for the most recent days is considered preliminary and may change as it is reviewed for accuracy.

The move to a new data dashboard includes a shift in the data sources, from an internal WCHD database to direct reporting from the Washington Disease Reporting System. Through regular reconciliation, these databases host the same information about Whatcom County confirmed cases and other COVID-19 related data. Throughout each week the two sources may have slightly different information based on the data entry process. Because of this change, some of the numbers may be slightly different than have previously been reported, such as the number of confirmed cases and testing information for a specific date. Overall, the shift to the new dashboard will create greater consistency moving forward, and the small adjustments in data reflect important ongoing data cleaning to ensure completeness and data integrity. 

In addition, the Washington State Department of Health currently defines COVID-19 related deaths differently than Whatcom County, which has resulted in a difference between the total number of deaths WCHD has reported and the total number reported by DOH. As these definitions are reconciled in the coming days

For more details about the data in the dashboard and other COVID-19 related data, see our Data Dashboard Explainer and our COVID-19 Data FAQs.

This information is also available as a pdf.

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