VIRGINIA, USA — Author's note: The Virginia Department of Health updates its COVID-19 numbers regularly. These are as of Monday, September 27, at 8 p.m.
Since mid-August, more than 120 COVID outbreaks have been reported among K-12 schools in the state of Virginia.
Health officials say that as students return to in-person learning everywhere, that number shouldn’t come as a surprise.
“You bring a lot of people together, and there are safety precautions to prevent transmission, but children under 12 aren’t even vaccinated yet,” Dr. Brandy Darby, a veterinary epidemiologist with the Virginia Department of Health, said.
An outbreak can be as few as two COVID cases, as long as there is an epidemiological link between them, Dr. Darby says.
However, the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic can make it difficult to narrow down which exact cases are caused by a specific outbreak.
“They don’t necessarily show the size of these outbreaks: whether that’s 5 people or 500 people,” Dr. Darby says.
Among those state outbreaks, 28 have been reported among K-12 schools in the Eastern Region during that time span.
As of Monday, in total, more than 550 COVID outbreaks have been reported in those school settings since the VDH began tracking the information.
The Hampton Roads region - accounting for Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Western Tidewater, Hampton, and Peninsula Health districts - make up 99 of those outbreaks.
More than 3,300 K-12 COVID cases have been recorded in the entire state as part of an outbreak, according to VDH data.
Since children under the age of 12 are not yet eligible for any of the three vaccines, Dr. Darby says it places a higher emphasis on COVID-safe protocols like wearing masks and social distancing in school settings.