The Whatcom County Health and Community Services Department (WCHCS) has a new respiratory virus dashboard that provides data on Covid-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) transmissions in northwest Washington.
WCHCS launched the dashboard at the beginning of December and plans to update it weekly with the previous week’s data. The data covers Island, San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish and Whatcom counties.
Health department officials created the dashboard to help healthcare facilities and people at high-risk for severe disease to make informed health decisions, according to a WCHCS release on the dashboard. The page will replace the county’s Covid-19 dashboard, set to retire January 31.
The dashboard’s latest available data on December 9 showed respiratory viruses transmitting at a significant rate through northwest Washington. Flu and RSV transmission were above their alert thresholds, while Covid-19 was below its threshold.
The region is considered to have high transmission rates if the viruses meet a set percentage of emergency department visits. According to the WCHCS, the thresholds are .3 percent for RSV, 1 percent for flu and 3 percent for Covid-19.
All of the viruses must be below their thresholds for at least two weeks for the respiratory virus community transmission to be considered low.
To view the dashboard, visit bit.ly/3GRRVIF.
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