Ranking Bay Area Counties’ COVID-19 Dashboards.
This is the fifth update to this review of Bay Area COVID dashboards. Like many things in this epidemic the dashboards are continuously changing. These rankings are a tongue in cheek way to motivate / shame counties to improve their information and communication with the public. I’m glad that the dashboards are getting better but there is still a lot of room for improvement.
The link article from the Harvard Business Review discusses Lessons from Italy’s response to Coronavirus. In particular they cite the need for lots of data, the need for micro-scale data, and the need for data standardization. The Bay Area is largely falling flat on all of these fronts. I rank the Bay Area counties’ dashboards below, but really they should all be unified displaying lots of consistent high quality information on all of them.
The biggest actions that need to be taken.
Make the dashboards consistent and bring all up to the same high quality standards.
All dashboard should include hospitalizations and testing
Testing should be divided into tests run on symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals
Tell us what are the current standards for getting a test?
Critical if you live in Alameda phone up your supervisor and ask them to improve their dashboard.
1st Place Santa Clara County
Santa Clara County is continually updating their dashboard. Now they have a fourth dashboard, the long term care facility dashboard. This tells me that they really are looking out for their vulnerable populations and holding themselves acountable.
Santa Clara County also put up a prediction about where their epidemic was headed. I love the uncertainty band and the way that they have added the hospital bed capacity. I wish that they were updating it regularly and comparing current information to their past predictions.
Because Santa Clara County’s dashboard shows resources available you can see that that they have brought on line 230 ventilators between April 7th and April 17th. The above charts combined with this detailed information about resources gives me lots of confidence in Santa Clara’s handling of this epidemic.
Santa Clara county please divide up your test result dashboard into individuals who were symptomatic when tested and those who were asymptomatic when tested. Also please share your knowledge with other counties to bring them up to your standard.
2nd Place San Francisco
San Francisco has decided to go its own direction with its dashboard. They have done some great things and there’s one flaw in their presentation.
Great to have Race and Ethnicity Data but the presentation is completely flawed!
I am already seeing disparities in the way this epidemic is hitting different Bay Area populations. Weath and Growth Rate. It is great that SF is collecting this data, but unfortunately the way they display it does not make alarm bells ring for the people that it should. The fact that 24% of cases are in the Hispanic / Latino Population becomes even more alarming once you know that Hispanic and Latinos make up only 15% of SFs overall population. Combine these two numbers to say that Hispanic / Latino people are 60% more likely to get COVID-19 than other populations. (Rough calculation 24% / 15% - 100%= 160% - 100% = 60%.)
Presumed Cases Shown
I love that San Francisco displays suspected covid-19 hospitalizations. This allows for the fact that COVID-19 tests currently take a couple of days and lets us know what the true current state of things is.
San Francisco please divide up your test result dashboard into individuals who were symptomatic when tested and those who were asymptomatic when tested.
3rd Place Marin County
I think I short changed Marin County in my earlier rankings because I hadn’t found their full dashboard. Marin County displays their data over time which is great but the presentation of the data leaves much to be desired. Much of the data is almost raw. San Francisco’s data presentation is much better.
Hospitalization Breakdown by Age
One of the great things about Marin’s data is that they’ve broken out their cases and hospitalization by age in great detail. This allows you to really see the effect age has on COVID-19.
4th Place San Mateo County
I am downgrading San Mateo’s dashboard because they are not updating it over the weekend. I feel really disappointed that I am working completely unpaid but they can’t find someone to update their numbers over the weekend. On the plus side they seem to fill in the Saturday and Sunday numbers once Monday rolls around.
San Mateo County’s dashboard is very similar to Santa Clara County’s dashboard. While I wish that they were identical one nice evolution of San Mateo County’s testing dashboard is they show pending tests in the time series so you can see what you are waiting to find out.
I wish the information was more consistent between Santa Clara County and San Mateo County but both are really good and similar enough that I’ll take the progress I can get.
5th Place Sonoma County
Sonoma County’s dashboard used to be top of the charts but it hasn’t been updated very much and it is showing its age (measured in weeks). It does have critical information like hospitalizations and testing but it isn’t displaying those across time like the other better ranked dashboards.
Underlying Conditions
One sub-dashboard that’s interesting is their underlying conditions dashboard. On this dashboard you can see that in Sonoma county fully half of the people who have COVID-19 have no underlying condition.
Sonoma County display your information across time. Bring your dashboard up to the standards of the higher ranked ones.
6th Place Contra Costa County
Contra Costa County almost edges out Sonoma county because it displays evolution over time but the dashboard is spread out over too much space and there’s not enough information that matters there.
My recommendation is that the people in Contra Costa County DPH don’t stress over trying to create their own dashboard. Focus on compiling the right data (easier said than done I know) and then talk to San Mateo and Santa Clara and copy what they’ve done for the presentation.
7th Place Solano County
Solano county is really failing on a number of levels.
Update your dashboard over the weekend.
The epidemic doesn’t stop spreading over the weekend. Solano county update your dashboard over the weekend. When I saw that Solano county’s numbers weren’t changing over the weekend, I read the small print and did a double take.
Solano County please show how your data changes over time. Also please show more than a green dot for hospital bed availability.
8th Place Napa
Napa county has made some odd choices. In particular they’ve included this global dashboard in the middle of their county dashboard. At best it breaks up the local data and at worst it distracts from the information that your residents need. Why is this global dashboard there? If it is serving a purpose clearly call out what that purpose is served beyond sensationalism.
Last Place Joint Alameda and the City of Berkeley
I had heard that Alameda was updating their dashboard and had been waiting expectantly for the unveiling. To say that it was a disappointment is an understatement.
They have unified Berkeley’s information and Alameda county’s information and they are displaying an evolution of the outbreak over time. However they have no information about hospitalizations and they have no information about testing. This are massive holes in the data being presented. Yes they have information by city but that needs to be normalized by the population of that city.
Step up Alameda and the City of Berkeley you can do much much better as show by all the other dashboards above you. Please don’t be shy to copy others. I would encourage it.
Take Action
I have found that the best way to improve your local county’s dashboard is to start calling your local politicians and to get your friends to call your local politicians.
I also had good success raising the flaws in San Francisco’s dashboard with the local paper MissionLocal Article. See if you can turn your local paper onto this story.
If you do not live in the Bay Area, see if you can find information about your local county’s COVID-19 statistics and place it in these rankings. If you find it lacking, demand more information. At a minimum you should be able to find the following information.
COVID-19 Hospitalizations and hospital beds available
COVID-19 ICU patients and ICU Beds available
Symptomatic individuals tested on a particular day (number of these positive and negative)
Asymptomatic individuals tested on a particular day (number of these positive and negative)
The information should be displayed in a time series not as a single static number.