Weekly updates from the Snohomish Health District on preliminary case counts, case rates, and additional COVID-19 data are now reported differently.

The detailed monthly reports also have some changes. The Health District currently produces regular COVID updates, available online at http://www.snohd.org/casecounts. While these reports will continue, modifications are being done to keep the focus on key metrics, while reducing duplication of effort in data reporting between the Snohomish Health District and the Washington State Department of Health (DOH).

An extensive COVID dashboard is available online from DOH, with the ability to narrow down to county-level data.

The changes to local data reporting include:

• Addition of a weekly CDC Community Level update to the local case counts page. The Health District updates on a different day of the week than the CDC, so there may be times when the community level temporarily does not match between the CDC website and the Health District website.

• Weekly updates will no longer have cumulative case counts and deaths.

• City case counts will be reported monthly rather than weekly.

• Long-term care and K-12 outbreak data will be removed from the weekly update.

• COVID vaccination data will no longer be updated weekly or monthly.

• The following figures or tables will be removed from the monthly report: Cumulative total by age group, cumulative case rate by age group, case counts by sex at birth, outbreaks by type of facility, long-term care facilities with outbreaks, COVID vaccination data.

• The number of heat maps will be reduced to one – the 7-day case rate map by ZIP Code..

• Data at the county-level for disease activity, testing. and vaccination is available using the state dashboard.

Given the length of the pandemic and the sheer number of total cases, cumulative counts are no longer as useful for planning and disease prevention as other metrics, such as 7-day rates or hospitalization numbers.

Weekly data updates typically are posted to the case counts page and Health District social media channels on Mondays, except for holidays.