Changing times: DPH will now post COVID dashboard once a week

BOSTON — A go-to report on the status of the state’s battle against COVID-19 will now only be published once a week instead of five days a week, according to the state Department of Public Health.

DPH says the move is meant to “...to reflect the evolving COVID-19 response in the Commonwealth.”

The COVID-19 Interactive Dashboard details such things as the number of confirmed COVID cases in the state, hospitalizations, confirmed deaths, and the positivity rate, which was listed at 7.29% as of Friday morning.

“As the pandemic has continued to evolve, so too have our data needs,” said State Epidemiologist Dr. Catherine Brown. “The changes taking effect next week are part of our ongoing efforts to adapt to the pandemic and focus on the metrics most useful at a given time. The updated reporting reflects the current status of COVID-19 and its impact.”

The change takes effect starting the week of July 11.

DPH now says data will be uploaded to the interactive dashboard once a week - on Thursdays.

The contact tracing and clusters tabs under COVID-19 Cases will be removed going forward. DPH says that due to changes in contact tracing practices, that data is “no longer representative of the current situation.”

The higher education data will also be removed going forward, “due to the decrease in surveillance testing being conducted in those settings.”

DPH says the separate “weekly vaccination report” will now be posted weekly on Wednesdays, instead of Thursdays.

“While we all have become used to checking the numbers every day, monitoring trends over time is actually the most useful way to apply the COVID-19 data,” said Dr. Helen Boucher, Interim Dean of Tufts University School of Medicine, Chief Academic Officer at Tufts Medicine, and member of the Governor’s Medical Advisory Board. “Given that Massachusetts has one of the best vaccination and booster percentages in the nation, these changes make sense at this stage in our COVID-19 response.”

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