ATLANTA — Georgia began publishing COVID-19 data on a new website run by the state Geospatial Information Office (GIO) on Saturday, replacing the long-running daily situation report that has been published by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.
GEMA announced the change would be coming earlier this week.
"The move toward the data hub means increased access to COVID-19 information for Georgians. The majority of data on the GIO COVID-19 page is updated once daily at 3 p.m. and converted to the supporting datasets available for download," a release said. "Some information is updated more frequently giving the most up-to-date snapshot of the COVID-19 situation available."
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It's not yet clear how up to date the new data hub is, or whether the new site may reflect different data-gathering processes.
Some numbers appeared off from recent trends, such as the current hospitalization figure. GEMA reported 1,742 active COVID hospitalizations on Friday, a number that continued a steady downward trend. The most recent number on the GIO data hub was starkly higher, at 2,189.
The GIO dashboard for medical resource use, such as ICU beds and ventilators in use, appeared in line with GEMA's Friday report.
The new site offers a range of data not as readily accessible as before, such as economic indicators, social media sentiment maps, and maps indicating current levels of social distancing across the state.
“In the beginning days of the pandemic, we developed our daily SITREP to supplement the Department of Public Health’s reporting, and provide the public with relevant data regarding hospitalizations, and resources,” GEMA/HS Director Chris Stallings said in the announcement release earlier this week. “GIO has created a one-stop shop for all of the data in a format that is more easily accessible, so it makes sense to share this site with the public and shift the resources we were using for the SITREP to other efforts.”
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