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by JACK HELEAN | Friday, October 30th

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WBMA) — Alabama’s new digital COVID-19 dashboard for tracking COVID-19 cases across K-12 public schools went online Friday afternoon.

The dashboard works much like the health department’s statewide COVID-19 dashboard and was built and designed by the same team at ADPH in partnership with the Alabama Department of Education.

The dashboard allows school nurses the ability to update the number of reported COVID-19 cases within the school system on a weekly basis. The total number of COVID-19 cases posted includes any individual within school system and does not differentiate between students, teachers, or staff, according to a news release by the department of education on Friday.

SEE ALSO: 82% of ICU beds full as Alabama heads toward new COVID-19 spike

SEE ALSO: Confirmed US coronavirus cases surge past 9 million

It provides one weekly, all-inclusive number of COVID-19 cases that have been reported to nurses.

We are hoping that this dashboard will serve two primary purposes: keeping our parents and communities aware of what is happening in their schools so they can make informed decisions about their children; as well as make sure we are doing everything we can within the school building and school system to mitigate the instances of COVID-19 exposure,

State Superintendent of Education, Dr. Eric Mackey, said.

State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said,

We want to balance the privacy of students, faculty and staff with our wish to provide parents the best information about COVID-19 cases in their children’s school system.

The Alabama K-12 COVID-19 Dashboard can be accessed here.

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