How Many Coronavirus Cases Are Happening In Schools? This Tracker Keeps Count

Enlarge this image

Teacher Alisha Morris created an interactive tracker of coronavirus in schools, current through Aug. 23, including this map, created by another volunteer. The National Education Association will now take on updates to the database.

US schools tracker/Screenshot by NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

US schools tracker/Screenshot by NPR

Enlarge this image

Kansas high school theater teacher Alisha Morris created a database of coronavirus outbreaks in U.S. schools.

Alisha Morris

hide caption

toggle caption

Alisha Morris

Shots — Health News
Coronavirus Maps: How Severe Is Your State’s Outbreak?

By Aug. 23 when she handed off the project to NEA, she and volunteers working with her had logged over nearly 4,300 cases at more than 1,000 schools, which can be seen on the map above, created by one of the project volunteers.

According to the data she has collected, as of Aug. 23, Florida schools have seen the most cases, followed by Texas and Georgia. (The NEA is in the process of moving Morris’ data to its tracker and is still a work in progress.)

Teachers began sharing Morris’ database online. Soon, Morris started receiving submissions from viewers of the spreadsheet about cases she had missed. But she had to find a way to verify them: «I initially started with only putting information in that had to link with a local news article and the local news article was reporting from the quotes from the superintendent stating these certain things or similar things.

As she began to receive more submissions, Morris had to adapt her fact-checking process.

«People were actually submitting their own personal anecdotes about cases that hadn’t been covered by the news, she says.

These submissions were sometimes screenshots of social media posts or parent emails sent by school administrators, which Morris believes are credible. She decided to create a dedicated section of the database for these kinds of reports, which she calls «unverified.

Shots — Health News
Swab, Spit Or Stay Home? A Wide Variety Of Plans To Keep Coronavirus Off Campus

Morris and a small group of volunteers search for more information about those cases.

«We’re still working on researching those unverified cases to see if articles pop up about them. But in the meantime, I’ve encouraged people to contact their local news outlets so that they can do some investigative journalism and see if they can find any affirmation that these cases were actually happening, she says.

And Morris believes that these unverified cases are an important piece of the puzzle.

«I absolutely get the suspicion based on the anecdotes that people have sent me, [that] there have been tons of schools that have been purposely trying to keep this on the down-low, she says.

The Coronavirus Crisis
‘It’s Great To Live In Rural Maine,’ Where Cases Are Low And Schools Are Open

She understands that schools are very worried about privacy, but, she says, «it does sort of create a bit of suspicion in the transparency. They will tell the close contacts and maybe the staff, but then they won’t publicize it any further than that.

Finding a way to integrate these data into the project will give a better picture of how many elementary, middle and high schools are dealing with coronavirus outbreaks in the U.S.

Morris says she’s relieved the NEA took note of the project and is hosting it. It’s been hard keeping up with the cases, she says, and the NEA «has a team ready to go to keep the information up to date and to continue the community-driven efforts in order to get these cases logged.