Are you concerned about covid-19 in your child's or grandchild's school?

The Department of Health and Environmental Control will begin providing on Friday twice-weekly reports on covid-19 cases at public and private schools.

This will include both cumulative and rolling 30-day counts of confirmed cases among students, teachers and staff.

It will be updated on DHEC’s covid-19 webpage on Tuesday and Friday afternoons.

Key points about this new data include:

• The reporting does not mean that students, faculty or staff contracted the virus at school.
  • Unlike a nursing home, where residents live at the facility, students, teachers and faculty come and go from school and are active in their community.
  • They could come into contact with the virus outside of school.

• The reporting will include kindergarten through 12th grade students in private and public schools.
  • At this time, college students will not be in these reports.
  • Several colleges and universities are choosing to announce cases on their websites.
  • Students living in South Carolina to go to school are included in South Carolina’s daily numbers.
  • This is reported by county based on current address.
• Only those individuals who physically attend school on a regular basis will be included in the counts.
  • Sports coaches, tutors, part-time employees, kitchen staff, custodial and maintenance workers and other school employees with a physical presence in schools will be included.
  • Students who participate in virtual instruction but are on campus for extracurricular activities will be included.
• Some schools may choose to self-announce cases before they are reflected in DHEC’s twice-weekly reports.
  • There may be in a delay in what cases are included in DHEC’s online reporting, as the agency works to receive the information, review it and confirm it before presenting it online.

To see the school cases lists, which will first be available Friday, visit scdhec.gov/COVID19schools