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Frederick County Public Schools will begin updating its health metrics dashboard twice per week in order to provide families with more recent data on the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community.
The dashboard will now be updated by noon on Mondays and Wednesdays. The first Wednesday update will be September 8.
In February, FCPS introduced the health metrics dashboard to give the community an opportunity to track COVID-19 cases that are reported to FCPS. Those cases are broken down by school buildings.
The health metrics dashboard also includes:
When the dashboard is updated on Monday, it will reflect student and staff cases reported from the previous Wednesday through Saturday. When the dashboard is updated on Wednesday, it will reflect student and staff cases reported from the previous Sunday through Tuesday.
Data will only include confirmed positive COVID-19 cases for staff and students who are physically working or attending instruction or participating in activities on school property.
If two or more COVID-19 positives are linked to probable community spread, it is considered an outbreak. The Maryland Department of Health (MDH) confirms all outbreaks, which are then reported on the Maryland School Outbreaks database maintained by MDH. The Maryland School Outbreaks database is updated on Wednesdays.
A reminder: When a COVID-19 positive case is reported to FCPS, contact tracing immediately begins. Close contacts are identified. Families are contacted. Students will be asked to quarantine if they are a close contact who has not been vaccinated. This is done to try to curb the spread of COVID-19 and protect the current option to provide in-person learning for more than 44,000 students.
A close contact is someone who has been within 6 feet of an infected person for 15 minutes or greater in a 24-hour period. There is an exception to this definition for students in a K-12 classroom setting when both the infected person and the close contact are fully masked and the school is following mitigation strategies. When these conditions are met, close contact is reduced to within 3 feet for students. Only students who meet this criteria may avoid quarantine. When in the cafeteria or anytime when students are not wearing masks, a close contact is considered anyone within 6 feet.
More information about our COVID-19 processes and procedures is posted on the health metrics dashboard. More details about the FCPS response to COVID-19 are posted online, including a list of frequently asked questions.