This week, we’ve made several changes to our local data dashboard. Our goal is to make it easier for Whatcom residents to understand where COVID-19 cases are occurring, so they can make more informed decisions. The two major changes are:
Changes to the chart showing case rates by age group, which can now be filtered by area of residence. Reminder: Sub-county areas follow school district boundaries but do not represent school-based transmission. Kids may be infected at family and other social gatherings and at events that are not related to schools. Another consideration is that the Health Department classifies cases by home address, and kids do not always go to school in the district where they reside.
This chart shows lines that represent case rates in six age groups and their changes over time.
Interested in case rates in just one particular area? You can choose to look at cases in age groups in specific areas of residence.
This chart is useful for comparing case rates in different age groups in the same area.
We have split the 0-17 age group into 0-4 years and 5-17 years, to provide more detail about COVID-19 cases in the school-age population.
You can choose more than one area by holding down the Ctrl button and selecting areas; this will combine the rates of the different areas. Mobile users can click the “select all” box and then select or unselect the areas of your choice.
Changes to the chart showing case rates by area, which can now be filtered by age group. This is the flip side of the other new chart.
Both charts have several features in common:
They allow users to toggle between 7-day and 14-day case rates.
They have sliders on the horizontal axis; you can adjust the time period shown on the chart, back to the beginning of the pandemic.
They have sliders on the vertical axis; if part of the line(s) is cut off, you can adjust the slider to show higher case rates per 100,000.
To reset either chart, choose “select all” from both the age group list and the area list.
Other changes include:
Addition of a chart showing hospitalization rates by sub-county area.
Removal of the cumulative vaccination line graph for the county as a whole. This information is already available on the DOH dashboard (click on the Cumulative Counts tab, then select Vaccinations and choose Whatcom County from the county list).
Change to the case counts by area map. Previously this map showed just cumulative totals; we have added a smaller, non-bolded number to indicate the number of new cases since the previous week.