The Santa Barbara County Community Data Dashboard that monitors the local status of COVID-19 will transition to a new format using data from the California Department of Public Health on July 1, a county spokeswoman said.
The change was described as “an important step in the COVID-19 response” by the County Public Health Department as it moves to make reporting data about the virus more routine for long-term monitoring.
Various counties have adopted the practice of “leaning on data” from the California Department of Public Health as part of their ongoing strategy, the spokeswoman said.
However, she said local epidemiologists will continue routinely monitoring local data.
“Through the course of the pandemic, our epidemiology team has worked diligently to ensure high-quality data is available for our policy leaders, health-care partners and our community at large,” said Van Do-Reynoso, director of the County Public Health Department.
“This shift to the use of [state] data will allow our County Public Health team to continue monitoring COVID-19 data while refocusing on other critical health data, including chronic diseases and social determinants of health.”
The new dashboard will focus in on such key metrics as case counts, hospitalizations, vaccinations and testing, with updates continuing on Tuesdays and Fridays, the spokeswoman said.
There was no indication what the lag time will be from real-time local data collection to the state’s data reporting.
For easy access, the new dashboard will be located at the same site on the COVID-19 Information Portal at https://publichealthsbc.org as the current dashboard, which will be archived July 1.
For more information, visit https://publichealthsbc.org/community-covid-19-data-dashboard-transition-faq.
