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Tracking COVID-19 at US EPA Facilities: The EPA Facility Status Dashboard
Citation:
Weaver, A., L. Baxter, D. Lobdell, Tim Wade, A. Neale, J. Baynes, M. Mehaffey, K. Widener, AND W. Cascio. Tracking COVID-19 at US EPA Facilities: The EPA Facility Status Dashboard. American Public Health Association, Denver, CO, October 23 - 27, 2021.
Impact/Purpose:
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruptions to workplaces around the world. At EPA, we created a dashboard to track COVID-19 metrics at and near over 120 facilities across the country. These metrics were used to inform re-opening decisions according to guidance from CDC and the White House. We used data from Johns Hopkins University and the US Department of Health and Human Services to create an interactive dashboard in May 2020 that continues to be updated weekly. This user-friendly tool is used by employees and contractors across the agency. Similar dashboards may be used by other agencies and organizations to track COVID-19 metrics at multiple locations.
Description:
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in major, rapid changes to operations at federal agencies, including the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We created the EPA Facility Status Dashboard in May 2020 to track COVID-19 metrics and operational status of over 120 EPA facilities across the country. For each facility, a commuting area was determined using US Census data, including the facility’s county and counties from where at least 1% of those employed in the facility’s county commute. We used three criteria based on White House and CDC guidance to evaluate COVID-19 status at facilities and inform re-opening decisions: 1) symptom data, 2) case and positive testing trends, and 3) healthcare and testing capacity. Data on influenza-like and COVID-19-like symptoms, tests, and intensive care unit (ICU) capacity were obtained from the HHS Protect database; data on case counts were obtained from Johns Hopkins University. For criteria 1 and 2, autoregression on 3-day averages using 14 days of data was used to evaluate trends in symptoms, cases, and percent positive tests. For criterion 3, thresholds established by CDC were used to evaluate ICU capacity using most recent available data and 14-day average percent positive tests. These data were analyzed weekly and displayed on a user-friendly interactive dashboard available to EPA employees. Additionally, 14-day incidence and operational status for each facility were displayed on the dashboard. This tool has been used by employees and management to understand and inform COVID-19 related decisions at EPA facilities. This abstract does not reflect EPA policy.