FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – January 19, 2021
Melissa Gordon, VDH PIO, melissa.gordon@vdh.virginia.gov
COVID-19 Outbreaks in Higher Education
Data Dashboard Includes Information on Virginia Higher Education
(Richmond, Va.) — The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has launched a COVID-19 Outbreaks in Virginia Higher Education dashboard. This dashboard includes confirmed outbreaks reported to VDH among public and private colleges and universities since August 1, 2020. This dashboard helps to provide awareness of the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in colleges and universities statewide.
Only distinct confirmed COVID-19 outbreaks investigated by VDH local health departments, and the associated cases and deaths related to an outbreak are included. A confirmed COVID-19 outbreak means that there were two or more confirmed COVID-19 cases associated with a particular setting.
VDH collaborates with Virginia colleges and universities to investigate and report outbreaks. Accompanying the VDH COVID-19 Outbreaks in Virginia Higher Education dashboard is a separate website hosted by college and universities that presents the number of COVID-19 cases reported at their institutions, www.covid19.va.education. VDH is not involved in collection of the data presented or the maintenance of this website hosted by colleges and universities.
For clarification, VDH will present only outbreak-associated COVID-19 cases and deaths on the COVID-19 Outbreaks in Virginia Higher Education dashboard. The dashboard does not include the total number of cases at the college or university. Some colleges or universities separately track and report the number of cases associated with their school or community and may use different methods than VDH. Therefore, it is not expected that the numbers on the VDH dashboard and numbers reported on individual dashboards created by the colleges and universities will match.
If you have questions about the data on the separate website hosted by the colleges and universities, please direct those inquiries to the specific college or university.