Indiana health officials are dropping the state’s color-coded map that rated each county’s risk of COVID-19 spread in favor of relying on a different federal rating system.
That is one of the significant changes that the Indiana Department of Health announced Wednesday for its online dashboard tracking COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths across the state. The agency has been updating the dashboard each weekday but will switch to Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates.
Indiana’s risk map was based on the number of new COVID-19 cases per capita and the percentage of tests confirming infections. The map updated last week shows 87 of the state’s 92 counties at the lowest risk blue level after all counties were in the highest-risk red level for the last three weeks of January.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national risk map is based on COVID-19 hospitalizations. It showed all Indiana counties at low risk levels as of Wednesday.
Indiana Health Department Chief Medical Officer Lindsay Weaver said the dashboard update is a step toward general surveillance models, such as those used to measure current levels of influenza.
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