Broome to End COVID-19 Dashboard Updates

People who have been going to the Broome County government COVID Dashboard for daily updates of the progress of the coronavirus pandemic are going to have to get their information elsewhere soon.

Other county health departments in the region have discontinued case numbers and death statistics on their Facebook accounts several months ago with those interested in daily updates finding them offered on a New York Times-maintained dashboard, the New York State Department of Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention websites.

Those sites during the course of the pandemic, over the past two and a half years, many times offered different numbers than those contained in the reports coming directly from local departments of health.

This week, the Broome County Health Department announced “due to changes in the way statistical information is shared with counties across New York, Broome County will discontinue its COVID-19 Dashboard in 2023. Information will continue to be available through the State Health Department and Centers for Disease Control.”

The county’s contract with the State Department of health CommCare platform will end December 31, cutting off the primary data source for the Broome COVID Dashboard.  A December 13 news release from the Broome Health Department says with the primary data source from CommCare no longer available at the end of the year, the Health Department will no longer be able to provide the same data to the dashboard.

The Broome COVID-19 Dashboard was established in March 2020 when there were no detailed, Broome County-level COVID-19 data sources.  The dashboard has gone through a few new designs over the past two years with the latest including a five-day case update, number of residents hospitalized with COVID and graphs depicting demographic trends for infection and morbidity.

The last dashboard data entry is scheduled for Tuesday, January 3 but officials say the dashboard will be archived for those who want to research data from March 2020-December 2022.

The sites for COVID-19 information after the beginning of the year are: The New York State Department of Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Health Department news release offers the assurance: “Although COVID-19 remains in our community, today we’re in a much stronger place than we were in spring of 2020 or eve then winter of 2021-2022.” “Compared to earlier phases of the pandemic, there is significantly less risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death due to tools such as vaccination, boosters, testing and treatments.”