Hastings Prince Edward Public Health will be launching an expanded respiratory illness dashboard in the fall of 2024 that would include information related to COVID-19.
“The current COVID-19-related dashboard and the weekly respiratory dashboard, those will be shut down through the summer months,” Medical Officer of Health for HPEPH, Dr. Ethan Toumishey, tells Quinte News.
“There have been some changes from the data infrastructure as well that’s necessitating this change. But we’re looking at sun-setting those and looking at a combined dashboard that’s going to have COVID risk, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), these various respiratory illness risks, and get that prepared ahead of the next respiratory season for ongoing information.”
Dr. Toumishey says one of the reasons for the change is due to changes in the data infrastructure.
The health unit is working with regional health units to determine what the format of the dashboard will look like.
It was noted that there are other ways to obtain information during the shutdown of the other dashboards.
“We are at a period of very low levels, but there will be ongoing dashboards and information coming through Public Health Ontario that people would be able to access,” Dr. Toumishey said.
“We are continuing to report on outbreaks of respiratory illness and other illnesses within high risk settings, particularly long-term care. So that is information that’s available on our website on a continual basis.”
Work continues from the health unit on preventing and responding to COVID-19 in the community.
