Kentucky monitoring system could aid other states’ COVID-19 efforts
Kentucky uses a tool that generates a daily score indicating how the state is performing against COVID-19, which could be used by other states to guide decision-making during the pandemic, researchers said in MMWR.
“State and local health departments in the United States are using various indicators to identify differences in rates of [COVID-19] and severe COVID-19 outcomes, including hospitalizations and deaths,” Kate Varela, DVM, MPH, an officer in the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, and colleagues wrote.
Kentucky’s indicator monitoring report (IMR) “combines multiple data elements to systematically assess reopening efforts in the state as measured by a daily composite state-level status score.”
The Kentucky Department for Public Health implemented the IMR system to monitor five state-level COVID-19 status indicators to inform reopening decisions, including:
- Syndromic surveillance data;
- Amount of new COVID-19 cases;
- Number of COVID-19-related deaths;
- Health care capacity information and;
- Public health capacity for contact tracing.
Each indicator is then evaluated using a three-point scale — 1 for poor, 2 for moderate and 3 for excellent. The state’s COVID-19 status is determined by the number of “excellent” indicators.
The IMR was used on July 7, 2020, to identify Bell County, Kentucky, as a suspected hotspot, defined as a county with a 7-day average incidence rate of 25 or more cases per 100,000 population, the researchers said. At the time of the analysis, Bell County had a relatively low incident rate. Investigations uncovered four clusters of cases but did not suggest increased community transmission. Regional epidemiologists determined no additional state-level health actions were warranted in the area, and as a result, mitigation resources were directed to other counties.
“Jurisdictions such as state and local health departments might benefit from use of IMRs to guide decision-making for continued COVID-19 mitigation and response,” the authors wrote. “Data sources included in Kentucky’s IMR are publicly available, data are analyzed with familiar software, and a standardized method is used to compile the report, suggesting IMR might easily be adopted by other jurisdictions.”
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