VIRGINIA, USA — The Virginia Department of Health is now tracking COVID-19 cases among children on its new dashboard.
The dashboard went live yesterday, but Dr. Julia Murphy said officials took it down after noticing an error in the number of pediatric hospitalizations.
“The number of cases and the number of fatalities on the dashboard were always accurate. It was the number of hospitalizations," Dr. Murphy said.
The number of hospitalizations reported was lower than the actual number. Dr. Murphy said there was an “inadvertent oversight” in the code that processes the data.
“…resulting in an inaccurate number of hospitalizations, so we took the dashboard down," she explained.
Dr. Murphy said the Department’s data analysis team reviewed the program, found the problem, and corrected it.
“It’s back up and running again and we’re on the good foot as far as accuracy and timeliness of data," Dr. Murphy said.
She said department officials launched this new dashboard because they thought it would be helpful to track the trends in cases among children – and it couldn’t come at a better time.
“We wanted to try to look at that to see what the trends there were now that the kids were coming together again and doing more in-person types of activities with Virginia’s commitment to in-person school," she said.
The data shows a surge, a general upward trend, in pediatric cases, hospitalizations, and deaths towards the end of August.
Dr. Murphy said there are a number of factors to blame, including the start of school.
“Anytime you bring people together, particularly unvaccinated people into close contact, there would be some risk of transmission," she said.
And there’s also another reason.
“And also of course we had the Delta surge," Dr. Murphy added.
But toward the end of September, cases started to decline. Especially, Dr. Murphy said, in age groups who are eligible for the vaccine.
Dr. Murphy said vaccinations could be a “valuable tool” in pediatric cases continuing to decline and they’re awaiting more information about eligibility for children younger than 12.