RICHMOND, Va. (WDBJ) – The Virginia Department of Health launched a new Pandemic Metrics Dashboard Monday, which gives a visualization of COVID-19 community transmission by region.

The new dashboard will be updated weekly and will show data trends for the virus in specific communities and where it is spreading. It will also help local and state governments in determining additional mitigation measures.

“Communities across the Commonwealth are facing different challenges as we all continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Virginia State Health Commissioner M. Norman Oliver, M.D., M.A. “This pandemic dashboard provides data for communities to individualize and tailor response efforts to local needs. A community where cases are surging and hospital beds are filling up, for example, will require different response efforts from those in a community where cases are declining and hospital occupancy is low.”

The dashboard will also include a CDC School Metrics tab to assist school officials in implementing strategies to decrease the transmission of COVID-19.

The VDH said it recommends that decisions to alter K-12 schooling, including decisions about in-person instruction, dismissals or closures be handled at the most local level possible, while considering regional and local epidemiology, community characteristics and local capacity.

On behalf of the commonwealth’s 132 school divisions, I thank the Virginia Department of Health for making this dashboard available as a resource to inform local decision making to help schools navigate how and when to consider in-person, hybrid and virtual instruction,” Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane said.

These dashboards are intended to help individual communities measure the extent to which the virus is spreading in their area and guide possible responses. The VDH said each community is different and appropriate mitigation strategies will differ; the best available data should be considered, as well as the impact to the community.

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