San Luis Obispo County Public Health launched a revamped COVID-19 dashboard on Sept. 27 to provide more detailed and streamlined data for the public.
This is the first major change to the county’s COVID-19 dashboard since its creation in March 2020, including information from vaccination status to variant breakdowns.
County Public Health spokesperson Tom Cuddy wrote in an email that many counties throughout California have updated their dashboards this year with data that is most relevant at this point in the pandemic.
The previous dashboard focused on individual laboratory-confirmed (PCR) case counts. According to Cuddy, the updated dashboard aims to use state and national data sources in order to provide data on big-picture trends such as wastewater surveillance, hospitalizations, the prevalence of different variants and vaccination trends.
Additionally, the updated dashboard includes access to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Community Levels tracker, which provides masking and safety recommendations based on each county’s case level. It also features links to the dashboards for Atascadero State Hospital and California Men’s Colony.
“The information we need to make smart decisions today is different than it was two years ago,” County Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein said in a news release.
Cuddy wrote that checking the dashboard on Friday mornings will yield the largest amount of the most recent data. The charts on the dashboard will be updated throughout each week as new data becomes available.