As the school year approaches, state departments and an independent health organization are working to create a new resource that provides district-level COVID-19 data.
Both Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) Secretary Johnny Key announced a new partnership between the ADE and the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement (ACHI). Under the partnership, ACHI will provide analytical support for multiple state agencies to provide data on COVID-19 infections at the district level.
According to Key, the data will be overlaid on a map of local school districts. The data will include the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases, the active cases and the positivity rates for a given area. Key emphasized that the data will not relate to school personnel and students specifically but for a broader district area.
“This is within the population of the physical boundaries of the school district. This is not going to be totals of school district personnel or students. This is a reflection of the broader community that exists within that broader community that exists within that school district boundary,” Key said.
ACHI and the Department of Education will be working alongside the Department of Health and the Arkansas Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Office to complete the project. It is expected to be rolled out by the end of the week with data current up to Monday, Aug. 3. Key said the data is slated to be update next week with the current week’s data.
This is the latest collaboration between ACHI and state departments. ACHI has previously collaborated with the Health Department to provide city-level COVID-19 data on its website. This data is designed to provide municipal leaders with increased information for responding to COVID-19 outbreaks.
Key told reporters that the new data will be a tool for local school districts during the coming fall. He said the data will help them determine their responses to COVID-19 cases or outbreaks when they occur.
“As we get ready and school districts start on-site, then they will need this data to help them with the response levels. So, as we see the cases occur connected that are with the school districts, they can take this data, look at what’s going in their district, look at what’s going on in the broader community, then make decisions under the guise of the response level documents in conjunction with the Health Department and the department of Education. It will help to have better data to make better decision as we move forward with on-site education,” Key said.
When asked if there would be a standard response to COVID-19 outbreaks, Key and Hutchinson insisted that each district was different and required different approaches. However, Hutchinson said that his administration would be reviewing criteria for responding to outbreaks.
“We’ll continue to see if we can internally look at the criteria and what should be the measuring stick as to what should be a moderate response…[if] there’s moderate spread or whether there’s severe spread in the community. But there’s a lot of factors that go into it: the number of active cases, positivity rate, how long that positivity rate has existed, whether it’s going up or down, the hospitalization rate in the area and making sure we have adequate coverage for the care that we have. All of those are factors. We’re going to continue to work on that because we expect the school districts to be communicating with the Department of Health, that the Department of Health and Education be working together as a team to be help guide that response whenever we see a positive case or multiple positive cases,” he said.
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