Alberta COVID dashboard reporting changes

Alberta is changing the way it publicly shares COVID-19 data in the province.

The dashboard will now differentiate between patients who have been admitted to hospital for COVID-19 and those who are in hospital with the virus.

“It’s a combination of people who are admitted with COVID-specific illness — so COVID has been a part of the reason for them going into hospital — and also people who are admitted for other reasons but have a recent diagnoses of COVID. We know that that second group still has impacts on the health care system with respect to infection-control protocols and other things. We have continuously reported these combined categories,” Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw explained Wednesday.

The dashboard will also identify outbreaks by facility type, and include graphs showing how many outbreaks there have been over time.

Alberta will now show outbreaks by facility type.

A new graph will show how many outbreaks there have been over time.

— Courtney Theriault (@cspotweet) July 20, 2022

The province is removing the ICU capacity tab from the dashboard, saying the previous set up shared duplicate information.

Meanwhile, in the short-term, officials will remove the vaccine outcomes tab for a summary of available, peer-reviewed evidence.

“In addition, what we know about our own Alberta data that we’ve been showcasing on that previous vaccine outcomes tab first of all is that since Omicron became the dominant variant, that vaccine outcomes tab has actually been an underestimate of vaccine effectiveness because it is an automatically generated analysis that uses all people who end up in hospital, whether or not their hospitalization is due to COVID-19,” Hinshaw said.

In short term, they will be removing vaccine outcomes tab for a summary of available evidence (a list of peer-reviewed evidence).

Says the vax hospitalizations tab data has been underestimated since Omicron arrived.

— Courtney Theriault (@cspotweet) July 20, 2022

Remaining COVID-19 dashboard metrics will remain the same, including geographical information and positivity rates.

Hinshaw says the province has been preparing for the changes for months.

“Moving more in alignment with how we report on other respiratory [viruses], such as influenza, but with additional enhancements that we are maintaining to ensure Albertans are able to access data about transmission risk in their own geographic areas,” she explained.