The amount of virus that is around, and can make people sick, changes during the year. We use data on flu, COVID, and RSV in Wasco, Sherman, Hood River, and Gilliam counties to estimate the likelihood of getting sick from a respiratory virus.

Here is what each risk rating means:

We use data from Wasco, Sherman, Hood River, and Gilliam counties to determine the overall risk rating. We use three kinds of data to find the risk rating:

• Wastewater testing- How much COVID, flu, and RSV virus is in the wastewater. The wastewater treatment plants in Hood River and The Dalles volunteer to send samples of wastewater from the treatment plant to an Oregon State University laboratory for testing. Anyone who has a virus will have pieces of virus in their poop, even if they don’t feel sick. Testing wastewater from the treatment plant is especially useful when many people have mild illness. This is a new way to learn about illness.

• Percent of tests that are positive- Hospitals test lots of people for COVID, flu, and RSV. When these viruses are not circulating, they get a lot of negative results. As a virus becomes more common, the percent of tests that are positive goes up. Public health has used this data to understand flu for many years.

• Symptoms Reported at the Emergency Department- Emergency Departments submit reports about the symptoms people had when they came in. As flu, COVID, or RSV become more common and/or causes more serious illness, more people go to the Emergency Department with symptoms.

All this data put together gives a good picture of when we go in and out of peaks, even though it does not count every person who is sick.

It usually takes 1 or 2 weeks for the data to be reported. Even with that delay, our rating should still reasonably reflect the current risk in our area.

If you have more questions, please call 541-506-2600 or email disease@ncphd.org.

Yes!

Both Oregon Health Authority (OHA) and the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) share data publicly. The CDC shares data on all three measures publicly on this webpage. OHA shares wastewater monitoring data on this webpage and data on the percent of positive tests here. You can also get weekly updates of flu in Oregon here and RSV in Oregon here.