As the colder season approaches many communities will be experiencing COVID-19, flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and other respiratory illnesses. With that in mind, Public Health Madison & Dane County has launched a new Dane County Respiratory Illness Dashboard.
This can be especially concerning for communities with chronic and pre-existing health conditions that may be worsened by these illnesses. “To our knowledge, we are the first public health department in the world with a dashboard that incorporates this type of air sampling data,” said Dr. Dave O’Connor, professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UW Medical Foundation, in a statement.
This free dashboard offers data on overall trends of illnesses people may be monitoring, school absences in your area, air samples, hospitalizations, and much more. Janel Heinrich, director of Public Health states in a press release, “Our COVID-19 dashboard has been immensely popular and we hope this new data dashboard gives people a broader view of what viruses are circulating. We hope that by making this information accessible, we are helping provide people with the information they need to make decisions about their health.”
Public Health collaborated with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District, the Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene, the UW Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, and the UW Department of Pathology & Lab Medicine to create this unprecedented dashboard.
“We are excited to see comprehensive information on the viruses that affect us all condensed into something meaningful and accessible for families, educators, health professionals, and communities,” says Dr. Jonathan Temte, medical director at Public Health Madison & Dane County and associate dean for public health and community engagement at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
