Stay Informed: Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department Enhances Respiratory Illness Dashboard

LINCOLN, Neb. – The Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department (LLCHD) has made updates to its respiratory illness dashboard. This tool helps keep track of various illnesses such as flu, RSV, and COVID-19 in our community.

The new features on the dashboard include:

• Data from wastewater surveillance for flu, RSV, and norovirus.
• A section on school absenteeism, showing the percentage of students absent due to flu-like illnesses.
• A category for outpatient visits, indicating how many patients go to healthcare providers for flu-like symptoms.
• COVID-19 data has been incorporated into the respiratory dashboard under a separate category.

Kerry Kernen, the Health Director, highlighted the importance of these updates. “This new data offers a clearer view of current disease trends in our area,” he said. “Dashboards serve as a timely resource for public health information.”

Recently, the dashboard reported that 7.6% of outpatient visits were for flu-related illnesses, an increase of 2.7% from the previous week. Additionally, 25% of the over 4,000 flu tests this year have returned positive results.

LLCHD first launched this respiratory illness dashboard in November 2023, and it receives weekly updates to provide the latest health trends.