Health department will discontinue weekly COVID dashboard next year
Beginning in January 2022, the Davidson County Health Department (DCHD) will no longer provide its weekly COVID-19 update for Davidson County. Sharing the news on Facebook last week, the notice was met with many citizens asking the department to continue updating the public on the current state of COVID-19 in the county.
Davidson Local reached out to DCHD Director Lillian Koontz regarding the decision. She shared there were many factors influencing the decision including lack of increase in vaccinations, approaching two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and inaccurate case numbers.
Below are answers from Koontz about the discontinuation of the weekly update:
1. Why will updates no longer be provided? We will provide more accurate updates weekly and share the link to the NC DHHS dashboard that includes the information we have provided over the last two years. We are making the change to share the state dashboard rather than our own dashboard for several reasons. The first reason - sharing the case count is an inaccurate number. Metrics are so important when you're dealing with a pandemic but due to the fact that many people are using home tests, results that we do not get.... and many people also are not getting tested that have COVID so we know our report of cases is a number much lower than the actual cases in our county. The second reason - an evolving response to the pandemic is necessary to move forward. Our dashboard is not driving change in Davidson County. We hope that by sharing more accurate metrics weekly (those who have died related to COVID) and timely new information, the weekly update will be more useful to the community. The third reason - it's duplicative. The information we share is also reported by NC DHHS, and we'll share that link weekly.
2. How did the department arrive at this decision? This month will be at one year since the DCHD received COVID-19 vaccines to give to the community. Our office reflected on what we've done since we had the vaccines and how we needed to move forward as we respond to COVID as well as continue other public health work in the community. Response and strategies must evolve and modifying the information sharing format is one of the changes going into the new year.
3. What have been the positives and negatives, if there are any, of sharing this information? It's always great to share information in the community, so that's a positive. The negative now would be that ultimately the data is inaccurate. We have always known that there were more cases in our community than individuals who were tested, but now the more folks we talk to the more reports we hear stories like..."Oh yes my mom tested positive, and now I have the same symptoms so I had know I have COVID but I'm not going to get a test." We also have individuals calling often and asking why their home tests aren't accepted when they are negative, so more and more are choosing the home tests which are not reportable.
4. On your Facebook page, a handful of citizens have commented asking you all to reconsider. Is this a possibility? I think that the request to reconsider most likely was a result of a misunderstanding with our original post. We are no longer going to publish the dashboard as is in 2022 however we will continue to share information about COVID.
When asked if home tests lead to inaccuracy in data then how are the state’s numbers accurate, Koontz said “The state has not made a decision to stop data reporting case counts. For that reason and due to the fact thar some in our community seem to want the numbers we will share what the state produces.”
Koontz concluded “I'm thankful that so many people are still looking at the data. The modification to this dashboard/data share is more in line with the way the DCHD shares information about all endemic communicable diseases. In March of 2022, it will be at two years since our first reported case of COVID in Davidson County. COVID is no longer a brand new infectious disease. The work we've done with COVID-19 is done all the time out of this department with other diseases.....Pertussis, tuberculosis just to name a couple. This change in information sharing is the evolution of response and more in line with how we would share information about outbreaks of other communicable diseases.”
