The Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department has announced that enhancements have been made to its data dashboard that tracks the level of respiratory illnesses in the community, including flu, respiratory syncytial virus or RSV and other typical cold viruses.
Enhancements to the dashboard include, wastewater surveillance data for flu, RSV, norovirus and other diseases, a school absenteeism category that shows the percentage of students absent from school due to flu-like illness and an outpatient surveillance category that shows the percentage of patients visiting a health care provider’s office for flu-like illness.
Health Director Kerry Kernen says data from the COVID-19 dashboard has been moved to the respiratory illness dashboard and is now under the “COVID-19” category. “Adding this data provides a more detailed snapshot of current disease trends in our community,” Kernen says.
“Dashboards help increase the availability of timely public health data and turn it into a valuable and visual resource for the public and partners.” LLCHD launched the respiratory illness dashboard in November 2023 and it is updated weekly. You can access the dashboard at lincoln.ne.gov/health by selecting the “Respiratory Illness Season” button.