LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services will start reporting COVID-19 outbreak information by school building Monday.
It will be posted every Monday at 3 p.m. and will include K-12 college and university name, number of cases and if the cases involve staff, students or both, according to a news release.
Students or staff exposed to the virus outside the school building and are not thought to have spread it in the school are not included in the data.
Data on COVID-19 outbreaks is being collected from the 45 local health departments across the state every week.
The state defines a COVID-19 outbreak as two or more cases with a link by place and time indicating a shared exposure outside of a household.
See the reports here.
“Parents and students should know that if their school is listed, their local health department and school are already investigating,” said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, chief medical executive and chief deputy for health. “Based on that investigation, people are contacted individually if they were possibly exposed to COVID-19 at school. Michigan schools are working hard to maintain a safe environment while also providing quality education.”
Officials warn that the reported data doesn’t provide a complete picture of school outbreaks in Michigan because a lack of effective contact tracing means outbreaks are underreported.