COVID-19 Morning Case Update October 14th, 2020

Washington State Department of Health sent this bulletin at 10/14/2020 08:22 AM PDT

Good Morning,

The timeline for today is:

- 8:15 AM Morning Epi Report to LHJ's
- 12:15 AM LHJs complete update in WDRS
- 1:45 PM WDRS completes processing updates
- 2:45 PM Data is uploaded for updating visualizations and website

Please find attached DOH’s COVID-19 data for today. These data are based on a pull from the Washington Disease Reporting System (WDRS) this morning. 

By 12:15 AM TODAY, please update all confirmed COVID-19 cases in WDRS that are current as of 11:59PM yesterday.  Data reporting to the Governor’s Office and the DOH website will rely on data populated in WDRS. 

Please note:

We have stopped reporting new deaths on the weekend.  Death counts will remain the same on Saturday and Sunday as those reported on Friday. Also, please do not change a case vital status to dead on the weekend, if at all possible. Please only make these changes during the week.  Any new deaths identified over the weekend will be in the Morning Epi Report for that following Monday. 

On August 11, 2020, DOH announced a new methodology for reporting testing and percent positive to better reflect the current status of the pandemic in Washington state. We have begun updating our codes, and plan on having the dashboards updated today. As we have noted, while the data will change and we expect the percent positive will decrease somewhat because we are now accounting for total tests, the dashboard visualizations will stay the same. Going forward, we will be adding testing data to the morning report for your review.  Note that this data will not be complete due to the lag in reporting, but will give you a sense of what is newly reported each day. If you have any questions, please contact the LHJ Liaison.

Effective 6/17/2020, DOH has started excluding homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths that do not mention COVID-19 on the death certificate. Previously, DOH has been defining COVID-19 deaths as deaths that occur in anyone who has tested positive for COVID-19. We have received feedback from LHJs that some individuals who fall within the current definition have died of non-COVID causes. We have included a table in the morning report with case ID's for people who may have died of causes unrelated to COVID-19. This determination was made using all causes of death on the death certificate. Please review your jurisdiction's cases and let us know if any of these deaths were COVID-19 related; we believe at this time that they were not, and will be updating our fatality  counts in the near future.

There is a table in the Morning Report that displays cases that are marked as not having been hospitalized but for whom a link to a RHINO hospitalization record exists. DOH is planning to review and change the hospitalization statuses of these individuals around noon each weekday; please reach out if you have any concerns.

There is a table in the Morning Report that displays the WDRS IDs of individuals whose death has been identified through the Electronic Death Registration System, but whose vital status in WDRS is still “alive.” These deaths are current as of 7:30 am each morning. DOH is planning to change the vital statuses of these individuals at around 12:00 pm each day; please reach out if you have concerns.

Any questions or concerns can be forwarded to the Data/Epi team at COVIDData.IMT@doh.wa.gov