Respiratory Season Is Almost Here, So We Freshened Up Our Dashboard
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The 2024 fall/winter respiratory season is just around the corner. It’s also our second year of having a combined respiratory dashboard, showing data on COVID, flu, RSV, and more. We took lessons learned from last year and updated the dashboard to be more useful for this year.
Change 1: Key takeaways
Our first change to the dashboard isn’t actually on the dashboard but right below it. Don’t have time to sift through data? Confused when two data sources seem to be saying different things about the same respiratory illness? We got you—this year, we’ll be summarizing the main takeaways each Thursday. Look for the key points under the dashboard.
Change 2: Updates to levels
We’re using a different methodology this year to set the levels of illness at low, moderate, moderately high, high, and very high. (These levels are based on data from people in the emergency department.) Currently, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services dashboard uses this methodology. This methodology compares this respiratory illness season to a bunch of previous seasons. So, when you see a level presented, think about it as, “compared to previous years, the current level of illness is __.”
CDC tested this methodology during the last respiratory season, and most states saw “moderate” as the highest level of combined respiratory illnesses reached during the season. That’s because last year’s season was relatively mild compared to previous seasons. We’re hoping this methodology will be a little more nuanced, getting to “very high” only when we are at extreme levels of illness and staying at “low” when not much activity is happening. We explain all the details of this new method in our data notes.
Once our “all respiratory illness” level moves from low to moderate, we expect that’s when the season will really be getting underway.
Change 3: Hospitalization rates
Race & Ethnicity
We’ve added a new race/ethnicity snapshot of people hospitalized for COVID-19, flu, or RSV. Because a larger pool of data gives us more accurate results, this page contains a whole year’s worth of data combined. It will be updated once a year instead of once a week.
This page helps shine a light on inequities in severe outcomes by race and ethnicity in Dane County. If everything in our society was equal, everyone would have the same hospitalization rates by race and ethnicity, but systemic issues like health care access, income inequality, and more can lead to different outcomes by group.
RSV Hospitalizations
Later this fall, we also plan to show the number of people hospitalized for RSV in addition to COVID and flu.
Change 4: More air sampler illnesses
One downside: we have fewer air samplers in schools this year compared to last year, so we’re grouping middle and high school air sampling results. But an upside: this year, we’re showing the detection of more viruses in the air beyond flu and COVID. If you want to learn more about air samplers, check out our data notes!
Do you know a science-forward school who would like an air sampler to contribute to the respiratory illness data picture? Please reach out to health@publichealthmdc.com and we’ll get them connected!
Change 5: First alerts
Every year, we’re keeping an eye on what metrics first start increasing for COVID, flu, and RSV. Last year, based on local research that found increases in school absenteeism due to illness typically precede a wave of flu detected in clinics, we set up a “First Alert!” based on increases in school absences. The idea being that when kids start getting sick, the rest of the community will soon follow. Last year, it turned out that flu hospitalizations increased first! We’re still keeping an eye on school absenteeism on the school absences page, but we took it off the first alerts section for now as we keep learning more. Additionally, one graph is now gone from the school absences page (one that showed positive test results from schools by illness) due to some funding changes.
This content is free for use with credit to Public Health Madison & Dane County .
