One extra pandemic-era staple goes by the wayside: Massachusetts well being officers are ceasing the each day numbers and demise stories, slicing them right down to weekly information dumps.
The state Department of Public Health, which has offered each day COVID-19 case and demise stories since spring 2020, is issuing its final such replace later in the present day earlier than beginning with weekly updates subsequent Thursday, July 14.
“As the pandemic has continued to evolve, so too have our data needs,” mentioned state Epidemiologist Dr. Catherine Brown, in accordance with a press release. “The changes taking effect next week are part of our ongoing efforts to adapt to the pandemic and focus on the metrics most useful at a given time. The updated reporting reflects the current status of COVID-19 and its impact.”
The state well being officers say they’re additionally updating the info dashboard with census-updated numbers to make ratios extra correct. They’re additionally chucking a bunch of what the DPH basically characterised as vestigial information factors, together with higher-education checks damaged out as their very own class, in addition to sections for contact tracing — a observe that was a lot touted early within the pandemic however has lengthy since gone out the window as prevalence elevated.
“Due to changes in case investigation and contact tracing practices, these data are no longer representative of the current situation,” the state wrote, including that higher-ed services not had been doing the big quantities of testing that they as soon as had been requiring.
The state will preserve doing a weekly vaccination report, too, now publishing every Wednesday fairly than Thursday. The updates for each day variety of doses, which at present run Monday to Friday, will simply be up to date within the weekly chunk, too.
“While we all have become used to checking the numbers every day, monitoring trends over time is actually the most useful way to apply the COVID-19 data,” Dr. Helen Boucher, Interim Dean of Tufts University School of Medicine and member of the Governor’s Medical Advisory Board, mentioned within the assertion.
Residents early within the pandemic watched for the each day stories, issued then seven days every week, intently because the brutal first surge of the virus swamped the realm and floor life to a halt. News shops raced to submit the much-viewed updates as information tales on-line and on native TV information.
But because the pandemic has worn on and surges have develop into much less lethal, focus has lessened on the each day updates, which the state final month scaled again to 5 days every week.
“DPH will continue to closely monitor COVID-19 in Massachusetts and maintains the ability to increase the type and frequency of data publication in the future if there is a need,” the state added.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”