Privacy worries help prompt changes to online access to COVID-19 data

Nearly four years after COVID-19 emerged, local and state public health officials are changing the online dashboards that fed out mountains of data allowing Californians to track nearly every rise, pause and fall of the pandemic.

Early this month, the California Department of Public Health replaced the data display on covid19.ca.gov with a dashboard that provides statewide information on the coronavirus and flu. It tracks hospital admissions, deaths and the percentage of people who test positive. It also reports the number of hospital intensive care beds available in California.

Gone is the county-by-county data display that focused solely on COVID-19, tracking case rates, testing, hospitalization trends and equity measurements focused on the disease’s spread in disadvantaged communities.

Ventura County public health officials are making the same transition with a new dashboard that tracks basic information on three viruses — COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus, also known as RSV. It’s expected to debut by mid-January on the agency’s website.

Until the transition is made, the county public health site will continue to provide the current updates that focus on COVID-19.

State officials said their move allows for a better understanding of the wave of viruses that rises in the winter. But the change is also driven by privacy concerns that grow as reported COVID-19 positive tests decrease, partly because of the reliance on home testing that is not reported.

If numbers continue to fall, smaller counties might need to conceal some data to protect people’s identity, state officials said in an email, asserting the practice would dilute the impact of the data. The state opted to continue to provide the COVID-19 measurements to county public health agencies but no longer display them publicly.

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The county's COVID-19 dashboard, posted in the heart of the pandemic on the site venturacountyrecovers.org, carries many layers of detail, including tallies of deaths and cases organized by city. Decisions on what will continue to be displayed are still being made but some information probably won't be included, said Doriselys Pagan-Pena, public health epidemiologist.

The county is following the state's lead in part because of the importance of providing a way to track COVID-19, flu and RSV all in one site, Pagan-Pena said.

All three viruses appear to be climbing but not at last year’s rate when their combined surge created worries about hospital capacity, said Dr. Robert Levin, county health officer. He remains hopeful there won't be a sequel.

"Maybe we've built up a little bit of immunity," Levin said. "I’m optimistic, at least open to the possibility, we won’t have a tripledemic."

Levin and other doctors encourage people to get vaccinated or boosted for the three illnesses. People eligible for RSV vaccines include infants, pregnant women and those 60 and older. A shortage of the vaccine for children continues.

Data posted by the county on Friday showed COVID-19 levels have climbed slightly though hospitalizations remain relatively low with 40 people admitted across the county.

More than 20 cases of COVID-19 sometimes emerge a day at the Dignity Health Medical Group in Ventura where Dr. Robert Dodge and five other providers practice. He tells patients that if they have cold symptoms, they should test repeatedly for COVID-19. He cited one case where a patient didn’t test positive until seven days after symptoms emerge.

Most of the cases, he said, are mild.

Dr. J. Paulo Carvalho, medical director of clinics in Oxnard and Thousand Oaks, said his physicians are seeing all three illnesses. The threat may not be as viral as it was last year but the risks remain real.

“We don’t have like just one thing to think about,” he said. “It’s definitely a different world with all of these three coming in at the same time.”

Tom Kisken covers health care and other news for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tom.kisken@vcstar.com or 805-437-0255.

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This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Privacy issues spark changes to California COVID-19 dashboards