EVANSVILLE, Ind. — The COVID-19 school case data Indiana seeks to make public would satisfy demands to know the number of cases in a particular school.
Indiana State Health Department officials say they have asked public and private schools to provide data for a public dashboard that will offer the number of positive COVID-19 cases by school. ISDH answered several questions by email about the dashboard, which it intends to unveil by the end of the month — but it did not answer when asked whether schools will be required to provide the numbers.
The proposed dashboard would constitute a breakthrough for parents of Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation students and others who seek per-school data to assess COVID-19's impact inside EVSC.
EVSC has been unwilling to tell all parents in a school or the public when or if a COVID-19 case pops up. School officials say they will share news about new cases only with state and local health departments and parents of children who are "close contacts" in COVID-19 cases.
EVSC indicated Friday afternoon that it will cooperate with the state's planned dashboard of in-school cases "based on our initial understanding of" it.
"We value (ISDH's) expertise and will defer to them in their role as the official reporting agency of COVID-19 data for the state of Indiana," said a statement issued by EVSC spokesman Jason Woebkenberg.
More: More open COVID-19 case data might be on the way for Evansville
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The statement came two days after State Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box addressed the planned dashboard in a statewide press availability with Gov. Eric Holcomb.
"Our request is that schools report this information daily," Box told reporters.
ISDH is sending a survey to school principals with a request that they designate school staff members to do the daily reporting, Box said.
"Once we have the survey results back (this) week, we’ll be able to identify any outstanding concerns and start building the dashboard," she said.
But the new statewide dashboard won't tell parents everything they may want to know about cases in their children's schools. ISDH said in its email that the dashboard will not display the numbers of identified close contacts in schools.
In August, the Indianapolis Star launched a statewide database to track confirmed cases of COVID-19 in schools. As of Friday, that database includes more than 500 cases connected to schools since buildings reopened July 1.
'I don't have anything more to say other than the email'
ISDH and EVSC's reliance on emails to communicate about COVID-19 — despite requests for interviews — has spread to the Vanderburgh County Health Department. But the local health department did them one better by sending an email and then refusing to elaborate on it.
ISDH has said schools are required to report infectious diseases or other communicable conditions to local health departments.
Asked by email how this is done, Lynn Herr, the local agency's clinical and outreach director, sent the following reply:
"There is a link and a spreadsheet tool that is sent to ISDH and INDOE for each positive case and the contact investigation pieces that each school has completed," Herr wrote on Aug. 27. "We are copied on each communication or link."
But Herr declined to answer questions seeking clarification, saying she was describing "EVSC processes." EVSC's Woebkenberg did not respond to inquiries then.
Herr rebuffed further attempts at clarification, saying in a Wednesday text message that, "I don't have anything more to say other than the email."
On Thursday, the Evansville Courier & Press filed an Indiana Access to Public Records Act request with the Vanderburgh County Health Department seeking, among other things, "all communications sent to the (health departnment) notifying it of positive COVID-19 cases and close contacts among students and staff members at schools in Vanderburgh County."
The newspaper filed a similar request with EVSC, seeking the school corporation's notifications of positive cases and close contacts to the Vanderburgh County Health Department and ISDH.
Told again on Friday about the "EVSC processes" Herr was describing, EVSC's Woebkenberg replied to an interview request with an email stating only that the school corporation values the health department's guidance and remains committed to communicating with it.
The EVSC message added another category of individuals with whom the corporation remains committed to communicating: "those directly impacted by this pandemic."
One state mandates open disclosure
Sharing information about school cases is not a question everywhere.
In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine issued an order Thursday mandating communication between parents and school districts in COVID-19 cases. Among its provisions: within 24 hours of receiving notification of a positive test result among students, teachers, staff members or coaches, schools must notify all parents or guardians of students at the school without releasing protected health information.
DeWine's order also mandates that schools report known COVID-19 cases within 24 hours to local health departments and that health departments report case information weekly to the Ohio Department of Health. The state agency "shall publish aggregate weekly and cumulative case data by school, if not associated with a district, or school district including a breakdown by students and staff" weekly, the order states.
Kentucky state health department officials said Aug. 18 that the state would begin to report details about COVID-19 cases in schools. The data would include the names of schools and the number of students and staff who have tested positive.
Once a day, Kentucky Commissioner of the Department for Public Health Steven Stack said, the state would release a report on COVID-19 cases in schools. That report can be found at https://ift.tt/327YenM.
But those numbers include only the districts that have reported. It encompasses only about half of the 171 school districts in Kentucky.
In Indiana, Health Commissioner Box said, the next step is up to the schools. Before ISDH can go forward, each school needs a staff member willing to take on the extra work of reporting.
Box addressed herself to school administrators in her presser last week.
"Please respond to the survey and identify someone in your school to run point on this data," she said.
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Indiana wants per-school COVID-19 case data in Vanderburgh, other counties - Courier & Press
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