Sheriff Jim Quattrone did a commendable job last week in making sure people knew there was a COVID-19 outbreak happening at the Chautauqua County Jail.

We note that the outbreak was known early enough for the Chautauqua County Health Department to have updated the public, but it did not do so. The Health Department has started using a daily dashboard update to keep the public abreast of COVID-19 developments rather than a daily email. The dashboard has additional information than was given before, but no narrative on cases or developments. The dashboard also doesn’t give any sort of information about hospital capacity within the county — a statistic that is taking on additional importance with Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Give credit to Quattrone, then, for issuing his own release with a clear explanation of what happened, what the Sheriff’s Office was doing, how many people had been tested and how many positives had been reported back. And give Quattrone credit for answering questions as clearly as he could about how he thought the outbreak began.

The sheriff’s performance last week during the outbreak was a textbook example of how to get information out quickly and efficiently.

At a time when cases are spiking, though, it’s time for more information from the county, not less. If the county and state want people to modify their behavior, there is information people need to have. Publicly discussing trends discovered from from contact tracing likely will carry more weight than platitudes from the governor’s office. Quickly discussing hot spots that are emerging is more likely to change behaviors than referring to them vaguely in a news release or not at all on a dashboard site.

If governments — both local and state — want people to modify their behavior during this COVID-19 surge, they need to give people more information, not less.