Virus dashboard lacks school data
Nearly two months after Indiana officials said they would release a public dashboard to help track coronavirus cases among students and teachers, the online tool still lacks data from more than 1,000 schools.
Unveiled recently on the state health department’s website, the new dashboard reflects the new and cumulative numbers of positive COVID-19 cases among students, teachers and other workers in a given school. The latest round of data, updated in the dashboard Monday afternoon, reflects at least 2,845 positive COVID-19 cases in schools around the state since the new school year started this fall.
But the dashboard’s numbers provide only a partial picture of COVID -19’s spread in schools. As of Thursday, 1,067 schools — nearly 40% of those in the state — still have not submitted information to the database.
Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box said Wednesday that “technical issues” are part to blame for the lag in reporting. Health department officials are additionally working to remove duplicate data entries, which takes time, Box said.
At the dashboard’s initial release, only 1,359 schools had reported their COVID-19 statistics. In the past week, 396 more schools contributed data, adding 491 new COVID-19 cases and bringing the total up to 1,755 schools reporting.
Current data show 944 schools have reported one or more cases, and 811 have reported no cases. Students make up the majority of the reported cases, with 1,192 cases, with another 406 cases reported among the state’s teachers and 447 cases in other staff members.
Still, because the reporting by schools is voluntary, the state dashboard numbers won’t fully capture cases. If school participation becomes an issue, Box has warned the state may consider making it mandatory for district leaders to report their data, although she hasn’t said that’s been an issue yet.
Even after more schools report data, the dashboard also doesn’t list the percentage of those within schools testing positive for COVID-19, known as the positivity rate.