Our Respiratory Illness Dashboard is Updated for the Season
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Did you know we have a respiratory illness dashboard?
That’s right! In 2020, we created a COVID dashboard to track the spread in our county, and it’s evolved since then to the version on our website today. We track a variety of different data, updated weekly on Thursdays:
If you just want the big picture, check out the front page:
Weekly summary/overall trends: tracks people in the emergency department who are diagnosed with COVID, flu, RSV, or any respiratory illness (combined). Emergency department data can be a key indicator of an increase in illness in the rest of the community. The homepage of the dashboard summarizes overall levels and trends so you can get the big takeaway. (Also check out our weekly key takeaways below the dashboard for a plain-language bullet point summary!)
COVID wastewater data: Madison and Oregon are two of the cities in Wisconsin that test their wastewater for COVID. This can give us a first look at possible increases in COVID, before people present to the emergency department. We have a summary of what’s going on in Madison’s wastewater on our homepage.
If you want to dive into details, check out the other pages:
Lab testing trends: testing results from healthcare clinic labs for COVID, flu, and RSV, as well as other cold-like viruses. This small slice of lab testing gives us a peek at what people are being diagnosed with in outpatient settings.
School absences: when a lot of students start getting sick, research has shown that the levels of flu in the surrounding community increase about a week later. We work with certain schools to track student absences due to any illness on this page to give us a bit of a warning about possible flu increases.
Air samplers: We work with UW-Madison research partners (Drs. Shelby and Dave O’Connor) to show air sampler data from K-12 schools. This gives us an idea of what viruses are circulating in indoor spaces with children.
Hospitalizations: we show the seven-day average of people in the hospital with COVID, flu, or RSV. In 2020, hospitals were testing most people for COVID, regardless of if they had symptoms. Now, hospitals usually only test people for COVID, flu, or RSV if they have symptoms. That means that our numbers generally only show people who are in the hospital because they’re sick with a respiratory illness. Because we only get a daily number and no further details, we can’t break these numbers down by age or race.
What’s new this year?
Besides fixing minor bugs, our biggest change to our dashboard is the air samplers page. We work with Drs. Shelby and Dave O’Connor, who capture the air in multiple schools in Dane County and test it for viruses. They test for COVID, flu, and RSV; this school year they are also looking for other respiratory viruses. This includes rhinovirus and enterovirus, which cause the common cold, and other cold-like viruses like adenovirus and human metapneumovirus (what a mouthful!). You can check out all the viruses they’re capturing on the air samplers page of the dashboard.
How can I take action?
This content is free for use with credit to Public Health Madison & Dane County .
