Written by: Caleb Klipowicz
Do you ever wonder where to go to get updated COVID-19 information in real-time? One place to start is with websites with “data dashboards” also called “data trackers.”
With all the news coming out about vaccines, how can people know how risky or safe it is to get together. Over Christmas, a few churches still hosted Christmas biits however there were far fewer than normal. Consulate General Eldon Alik continues to recommend virtual celebrations and commemorations for the time being reporting that cases in the Marshallese community continue to go up and down. Regarding an upcoming for ri Jaluit being planned in one of the churches in Arkansas he cautioned that reports show that the number of covid-cases have increased and that hospitals are at capacity for covid-patients with records just yesterday for number of deaths in one day: “Report ko rej kwalok ke ejjanin driklok naninmej in. Ej lap lok wot. Inne kar record in mej ilo juon raan. E obrak hospital kane adean ilo NW Arkansas kin ri-naninmej.” In a different conversation with Chikin Melele, Dr. Sheldon Riklon made a similar observation that it seems we keep breaking records on records when it comes to number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the state. As for the celebration, Consulate General Alik suggested a virtual option: “I melele kin jonan an aurok ien in. Botab ij lomnak juon in wewein jemaron ja jab kommane ilo ad ibben dron ilo kanniek.”
What is a COVID-19 Data Tracker?
At the national and state levels, health departments have put out numerous interactive websites for people to learn about the numbers of people with COVID. These websites come with huge amounts of information – you can learn about the disease itself, how to take precautions, and find guidelines for how to keep individuals and places of business safe. Data trackers also usually include things like up-to-date information on the total numbers of cases and deaths, along with maps and charts to help us understand the numbers better. These numbers get updated every day, sometimes more than once a day, so each time you visit you get a different snapshot of how things have changed. While dashboards can be intimidating at first, they also offer very useful ways for people to stay informed about the pandemic in their area.
National COVID Data Tracker
Let’s take a look at two COVID data trackers. The Center’s for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) runs a national COVID Data Tracker (https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/). The front page includes latest updates of total cases, average daily cases, and total deaths across the US and US-affiliated Pacific Islands. There is then a map and a few options you can select to change which numbers you see. For instance, you can compare the total number of people who have died in Arkansas since January of 2020 or you can look at the proportion of people that have caught COVID in the past 7 days.
Looking at this map, Arkansas is one of a handful of states with the worst burden of growing cases currently third worst in the country in fact on Monday, January 11th . These data show between 100-130 new cases happen every day for every 100,000 people in the state (There are about 3 million people total). You can even see how bad things are by specific counties. In Benton and Washington counties, for instance, cases continue to rise, up nearly 10% and 20% respectively in the past seven days.
Arkansas Department of Health COVID-19 Alerts/Updates
The Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) also operates their on dashboard focusing only on Arkansas, with a bit more detail about the cases. On the first page there is an “Alerts/Updates” section that is changed everyday with a snapshot of state cases, deaths, and hospitalizations. Clicking on the “COVID-19 Dashboard” link brings up a different site with more health statistics and interactive maps. Here we can see under “Case Demographics” that at least 3,200 Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders have contracted COVID in Arkansas so far, with at least 51 deaths due to the disease. Although most likely not all many people in these numbers are ri-Majel (NHOPI is a bigger category that includes anyone from throughout the Pacific), we can assume that most of theses cases are.
https://www.healthy.arkansas.gov//programs-services/topics/novel-coronavirus
What does all this mean for the Ri-Majel community?
First, it means you don’t have to be a public health expert to keep up to date on the numbers of cases going on around you. Although we don’t have all the information given to us on dashboard websites, we can be confident these show trends, or patterns over time, pretty well. Second, at this time, the trends all point to the same direction: the pandemic is still alive and well. While we should all be hopeful about vaccines in the coming months, it could take a very long time for enough people to receive the vaccine to end the pandemic. Until then, public health experts in the Arkansas Department of Health continue to ask everyone to keep up precautions, like wearing masks outside your home, washing your hands often, and staying six feet away from other people in public. They also emphasize that we all need to keep special precautions for indoor spaces, including churches and other places of worship through March, 2021 at least.
While we may be close to getting through this pandemic, we all need to do our part to protect ourselves, our families, and our communities until dashboards like these show zero new cases everyday.