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NY to track school COVID testing

ALBANY — New York will unveil an additional public coronavirus dashboard in the coming days that will track COVID-19 diagnostic tests across schools statewide as in-person classes prepare to resume next week.

The state’s 713 public school districts each submitted plans to the state Department of Health and Empire State Development last month on how they will safely reopen buildings to in-person learning or instruction as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

Schools detailed how they would enforce students to wear masks and maintain social distancing, or six feet from others, and how many students, faculty and staff a district plans to test each week.

“Those plans are only as good as their implementation,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday during a call with reporters. “Parents and teachers are obviously concerned about schools reopening, and they should be.”

The state dashboard will accompany the state DOH’s COVID-19 tracker at covid19tracker.health.ny.gov. It has publicized the new cases and fatalities in each of the state’s 62 counties for several months. The tracker also includes confirmed coronavirus fatalities in adult care facilities and nursing homes statewide. The state DOH’s additional dashboard will monitor a school’s COVID-19 diagnostic tests and their results, or new positive cases in the district.

Schools must send their testing report to the state and their local health departments every day, Cuomo said.

“That information will be posted online as soon as we get it,” the governor said. “Parents and teachers will know how many tests were conducted and what the results of those tests are.”

The dashboard will hold districts accountable, and prove they are following the testing guidelines approved by state officials.

“Hopefully, that will give parents and teachers some confidence,” Cuomo said. “If the plans aren’t being implemented, we want to know that. If there’s a problem, the sooner you find out about the problem, the better.”

The state’s rate of new COVID-19 infections remained under 1% for the 27th straight day at 0.99% positive Thursday — or 898 additional coronavirus cases after 88,981 tests Wednesday. Hospitalizations in the state declined to 430 patients Thursday.

Seven New Yorkers died from the virus statewide Wednesday, including one in Essex County.

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