D.C. Health Director Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt appeared at a press conference with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.

Luis M. Alvarez / AP Photo

On Thursday, D.C. officials said they are introducing new, easier-to-understand metrics for the public to better track the spread of the coronavirus.

Starting next week, D.C. will start publicly reporting and publishing on their dashboard daily reported cases per 100,000 and will “retire” reporting the date of symptom onset as the main way of tracking community spread. In recent months, this metric has often left residents confused and officials frustrated while they attempted to provide more clarity.

“We believe [reported cases per 100,000] metric is far easier and useful for the public to be able to follow along with,” said D.C. Health Director Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt.

Nesbitt said D.C. officials already use the metric to provide guidance and set policy, like the travel advisories. Now, however, it will also be available for the public to look at and consider.

Nesbitt essentially admitted the previous metric was tough to understand.

“It will be visually a lot easier for people to see if a line is decreasing for 14 days based on the daily reported case rate,” she said. “As opposed to being able to comprehend those statistical computations.”

The city will also be publishing a few other new metrics. One is the mean test turnaround time over a 7-day period, as in how fast test results are provided back to patients. According to city data, it’s currently at 2.2 days, which is much faster than what was reported earlier in the summer.

In recent days, D.C. and LabCorp — the city’s main provider of tests — were in disagreement about the actual number of tests available to D.C. residents. This comes at the same time as an apparent shift in messaging from the city about who should be getting a free, public test.

D.C. will also now report tests conducted per million, which is something other states report, and three metrics related to “community engagement,” which have to do with contact tracing — positive cases with a completed interview within 3 days, percent of cases providing close contact information, and mean number of close contacts provided per case.

According to D.C. data, about 59% of positive cases have their contact tracing interviews done within three days, but only 37% provide all of their information about close contacts. Plus, when they do, they are only providing, on average, one person as a close contact.

Nesbitt says this mostly has to do with stigma and people not trusting that their conversation with contact tracers will be kept private. She said people may be socializing with people outside of their households, but don’t want them to know they tested positive for the virus.

“They don’t want people to know that they are the potential reason there could be an outbreak in their small, social circle,” Nesbitt said.

She assured residents that contact tracers won’t name the person or give particularly detailed information that could identify them.

“What is important is that we can notify people that they have been exposed, that they need to quarantine so we can reduce transmission in the community,” Nesbitt said.

Nonetheless, both she and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser complimented the city’s contact tracing approach at the press conference.

“We are a gold star in terms of contact tracing,” Nesbitt said.

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