COURT HOUSE – As of June 4, the Cape May County Department of Health will stop public reporting of county-specific Covid metrics on the county website.
The county’s Covid dashboard states that “no further updates will be made to this page.” The website alerts anyone seeking data on Covid spread in the county to turn to Covid Act Now, a national Covid tracking website that contains aggregate data on Covid spread for states and counties.
The county’s decision comes as the Covid infection rate in the county remains high enough for both Covid Act Now and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to rate Cape May County at high risk for community spread.
The last data post on the county site is for June 3. In the week ending with that post, the county continues to experience 40-plus new cases per day. The county report notes that this is without consideration of any results from home testing. It is the continued spread of the virus at an elevated daily average that provides the basis for the CDC rating of high community risk.
The week ending June 3 also saw two additional Covid fatalities, bringing the reported total in that final post to 317 since the start of the pandemic.
Those who use the Covid Act Now site for continued information on county cases need to keep in mind that the statistics are reported per 100,000 permanent residents. Since the county is under that threshold, the numbers reported will always be slightly higher than what the county itself would report.
The Covid Act Now site follows CDC recommendations by focusing on levels of hospitalizations. Hospitalization numbers that are county-based are retrieved from the county’s one acute care hospital, Cape Regional Medical Center. The numbers would not reflect any county individuals who may be hospitalized with Covid at Shore Medical Center or any other out-of-county medical center.
The county Covid dashboard provides no reason for the county’s decision to discontinue the posts.
