Earlier this month we rolled out Inside Medicine’s new one-stop shop for up-to-date Covid-19 metrics, from hospitalizations and ICU admissions, to wastewater levels (the best proxy for case counts we have these days).
While the data we’ve aggregated are all available elsewhere in some form or another, our goal is to make it easy for readers to find all the relevant updated data in one place.
Apparently, there was quite a need for this, because the feedback we got when we rolled out our dashboard was extremely positive—including from state health officials, public intellectuals, and Pulitzer-prize winning journalists. Not to mention the more than 30,000 visitors who have accessed the page, in around two weeks.
We’ve made some updates in response to your ideas. And…we’ve now added a whole new page devoted to influenza and RSV metrics (also from up-to-the-minute CDC data). Just like on the CDC’s own pages, you can look at the data by age, sex, and race/ethnicity, albeit in some cases the breakdowns are only available for national data while for some, there are only state-level data. (If you select an option and the screen is blank, that’s why).
We’ve also made it so you can compare the “big three” respiratory diseases side-by-side. While this provides great insight, one thing I’ll mention is that flu and RSV detection is “different” now, as compared to the past. Some of the increase in RSV hospitalizations in the last couple of years could be “catch up” from the previous two winters (during which RSV and flu were basically vanquished, a nice secondary effect of our Covid-19 mitigation). But some of the increases in RSV, in particular, could be from “improved detection,” because more RSV testing is happening in ERs than in the past. So, do keep that in mind as you peruse the data and graphs.
Take a look and let us know what is working and what needs a tweak. Inside Medicine data-guru Benjy Renton has been able to make a lot of quick fixes based on your feedback, and we’ll continue to build this out and make improvements so that you always have the most up-to-date metrics at your fingertips as the season gears up.
We’ll also soon start sending out occasional updates that capture data trends we’re seeing in the meta-data.
But for now, here’s that link again to the Inside Medicine Covid-19, Flu, and RSV dashboard.
Data sources:
States:
Hospitalizations: https://healthdata.gov/Hospital/COVID-19-Reported-Patient-Impact-and-Hospital-Capa/g62h-syeh
Deaths: https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-death-counts-rates-and-percen/mpx5-t7tu
Wastewater: https://data.cdc.gov/Public-Health-Surveillance/NWSS-Public-SARS-CoV-2-Wastewater-Metric-Data/2ew6-ywp6
Cases: https://data.cdc.gov/Case-Surveillance/Weekly-United-States-COVID-19-Cases-and-Deaths-by-/pwn4-m3yp
Counties:
Hospitalizations: https://data.cdc.gov/Public-Health-Surveillance/Weekly-United-States-COVID-19-Hospitalization-Metr/akn2-qxic (since May 2023) and https://data.cdc.gov/Public-Health-Surveillance/United-States-COVID-19-Community-Levels-by-County/3nnm-4jni (before May 2023)
Wastewater: https://data.cdc.gov/Public-Health-Surveillance/NWSS-Public-SARS-CoV-2-Wastewater-Metric-Data/2ew6-ywp6
RSV and influenza: https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/resp-net/dashboard.html
I think this is a great idea. We have been sadly lacking in stats, especially since the CDC stopped reporting in real time on deaths. Even now, their page that you refer us to doesn't seem to show US total deaths. With that in mind, could you please explain your sources in more detail? I am particularly interested in deaths because the other metrics are "fuzzier" and I am more focused on the mortality risk for me and my wife. We'd like to get a better handle on the risk of death from COVID versus the risk from flu before the pandemic. That's a useful comparison for us because there was no way flu risks informed or curtailed our daily life (except for annual vaxxes). From looking at CDC historical figures on deaths from flu in the 10 years preceding COVID, the annual deaths ranged widely. We found that the peak was in the low 50,000s and the average was about 35,000. In our minds we decided that if we got to a daily COVID rate that was pretty much equivalent to double the average, i.e. about 70K, we would feel that living a pretty "normal" life would be (psychologically)manageable. In 2021 and 2022 we felt fairly confident that the death data we received on a weekly (and hence daily and annually) basis was pretty good. Different sources collected the data but the numbers were reasonably similar. This year, particularly after sources other than the CDC stopped reporting (notably Johns Hopkins), and the CDC itself stopped with the end of end of health emergency, we don't find the figures easy to access and less believable. For example, the "excess deaths" calculated based on the CDC numbers seem questionable because they have recalculated "normal" deaths from all causes to include the pandemic years of 2021 and 2022. Obviously this creates a higher normal and a lower excess number. This is a very longwinded comment and series of questions, but we'd sure appreciate any help you can provide. The current graph of deaths seems way too low - extrapolating from the current 215 a day gets to only about 78,000 per year which would be nice but seems much too good to be "true". I believe you were calculating excess deaths as your measure. If you still do that, how do you deal with the change in the baseline? And are you using a calculation of excess deaths to create your death chart, because I couldn't even find any reported "baseline" numbers on the CDC website location you linked us too. Again, the CDC data is very hard for us to access and rely on. Can you please help a couple in their mid to late '70s who desperately need to feel comfortable with "living again".
You guys are seriously wearing the superhero capes! This question is totally the user (me) not being able to interpret the lines. Can we tell from the lines if our county has moved from “low” to “medium”? Basically when would it be a smart move to mask up again? I feel like we are still behind the power curve if this virus, BUT THIS SIGHT IS JUST THE BEST!!!!!!