DOH Launches New Dashboard To Track State's Coronavirus Progress

WASHINGTON — The Washington State Department of Health has launched a new tool that they hope will help inform residents of how well their communities are controlling the spread of the coronavirus— and how far they still have to go.

Wednesday the state launched a new version of their COVID-19 risk assessment dashboard, which lets users track several key metrics:

• The number of new coronavirus cases per every 100,000 residents diagnosed over the past two weeks.
• The number of people tested for each new case during the last week.
• The percentage of coronavirus lab tests that came back positive during the last week.
• The percent of hospital beds currently occupied.
• The percent of hospital beds occupied by coronavirus patients.

By default, the dashboard shows the metrics as applied to the state as a whole, but for a more granular look users can check how each county individually is handling the pandemic.

According to the dashboard, the state at large has already met two of the key metrics: around 64 percent of hospital beds are occupied, and only 3.5 percent of beds are occupied by coronavirus patients.

However, other metrics still have a ways to go: right now there are 41.8 patients diagnosed with the coronavirus every two weeks out of every 100,000 Washingtonians. The goal is to have fewer than 25.

Health officials say this exact data, now easily available to the public, is the same data they will use to decide how and when to reopen parts of the state.

“This data, combined with the additional information provided by counties when they apply for approval to move to a new phase, will help us work together to determine when it’s safe for a community to move forward,” said John Wiesman, Secretary of the Washington State Department of Health.

The dashboard was built through a partnership between the Washington Department of Health and Microsoft.

The new dashboard can be found on the state's website here.