Peterborough Public Health Pilots Local COVID-19 Community Risk Index

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Peterborough Public Health released a beta-version of its new online COVID19 Community Risk Index on Wednesday to help residents protect themselves and others when local transmission levels are high.

Stock photo.

The COVID-19 Community Risk Index incorporates data such as wastewater surveillance signals, number of hospitalizations and deaths, percentage positivity of PCR tests and community-reported rapid-antigen tests (through Peterborough Public Health’s online survey), and the local case incidence rate per 100,000.

The Index provides a risk level for each data point based on current values, which is then used to inform the overall risk level for the community. The Index will be updated weekly each Wednesday by 4 p.m. The Index can be found at www.peterboroughpublichealth.ca/covid-risk-index.

“Our goal with the COVID-19 Community Risk Index is to make our community’s virus transmission status as transparent as possible by integrating several indicators into one easy-to-understand five-point scale,” said Dr. Thomas Piggott, Medical Officer of Health. “Each level corresponds to specific public health guidance both for the general population, and for those residents who are at high-risk of serious health outcomes if they get infected.”

Peterborough Public Health is one of the first health units in Ontario to produce a local COVID-19 Community Risk Index. Dr. Piggott noted the Index is still in its pilot phase and wants to hear from residents how useful this tool is for them as we all learn to live with COVID-19 while the pandemic continues. Residents are encouraged to complete the online survey that can be found on the same webpage as the Index itself, or by clicking on this link.

The COVID-19 Community Risk Index will continue being refined in the coming weeks, including through the addition of granular data in a ‘business intelligence dashboard’, and will ultimately replace the Local COVID-19 Tracker.

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