Coronavirus Cluster Report New Weekly Addition to DOH Virus Updates

Volunteer Crystal Charkowski (left) decontaminates Heather Pries, United Health Care nurse service coordinator (right) after collecting a COVID-19 test sample. (Tiffany DeMasters)

Weekly COVID cluster reports will be released Thursday by the state Department of Health, beginning this week. The DOH said it will also adjust its practices for collecting and reporting daily COVID-19 data.

The Weekly COVID-19 Cluster Report highlights recent incidents in which the virus occurred at one time, in the same geographic location, or among people with the same or similar shared exposures.

For example, this week’s report includes information on clusters related to college students attending parties, a cluster connected to a group of co-workers who ate lunch together, and a cluster at an O‘ahu school.

Public health officials study disease clusters to identify risk factors, design intervention strategies, and prevent further infection.

A new Cluster Report will be posted every Thursday on the DOH website. The Cluster Report documents COVID-19 cluster investigations during the previous 14 days. A comprehensive cluster report will be published after the end of the calendar year once all 2020 cluster investigations have concluded.

In addition, DOH will shift its data window this weekend. This adjustment will change the time regular updates are available on the COVID-19 dashboard at https://hawaiicovid19.com. Daily updates on the dashboard will appear at noon rather than the current 3 p.m. time.

This change will also mean no new data, including the number of new COVID-19 cases, will be available on Sunday, Nov. 15, 2020. The data that would be reported Sunday at 3 p.m. under the current schedule will now be reported Monday at noon.

This additional time provides DOH and its partners a more sustainable data timeline and allows for greater accuracy in reporting COVID-19 statistics, the department said. It also makes Hawai‘i’s data timeline more consistent with the timeline of other states, counties, and municipalities across the country.