At an afternoon briefing to legislators, Gov. David Ige and representatives from the Hawai‘i Department of Health and the University of Hawai‘i unveiled a new COVID-19 dashboard for anyone interested in tracking local data associated with the coronavirus pandemic. This dashboard can be accessed at www.hawaiicovid19.com
The new metrics now available include:
ICU bed and ventilator use by COVID patients: total number and % of capacity
Occupancy and capacity of Isolation and Quarantine facilities (for those who cannot isolate or quarantine at home)
Contact tracing capacity and currently active/trained tracers, by County
Testing capacity and turn-around time
PPE supplies and distribution
Modes of transmission with number of cases and clusters for each
Mask-wearing behavior (Honolulu; all islands in process)
Data for the dashboard is being pulled from multiple sources and will be updated daily or weekly, depending on the sources from which the information is derived. The dashboard will continue to be a collaborative process involving DOH and key partners sharing timely and accurate information with the public.
The dashboard seeks to inform the community and policy makers on four key action areas essential to stopping the pandemic:
Prevention: depicts the impact that individual and community behaviors such as mask wearing and physical distancing on keeping the virus from spreading. Prevention is essential in fighting the pandemic but often the most difficult to track because they largely relate to personal behavior and choices.
Detection: depicts how much disease is present in Hawai‘i, the types of activities or venues that are resulting in disease transmission, and whether it is increasing or decreasing and how rapidly. This information allows policy makers to tailor their actions and the public to engage in safe practices.
Containment: pulls together various parts of a complicated system to help people understand the status of contact tracing, lab testing results, quarantines, and other disease-limiting measures. These measures, taken together, are an important part of controlling the pandemic.
Treatment and health care: shows data on hospital & ICU beds, ventilator use and availability of personal protective equipment (PPE). From this information the public and policy makers can understand how burdened the health care system is, and how prepared it is to manage an influx of COVID-19 patients.
