The University of Kentucky (UK) and other Fayette County schools are abandoning the public COVID-19 dashboard format for the Fall 2022 semester.
During the 2022-2023 school year, UK’s COVID-19 dashboard provided regular updates concerning infection rates, test results, and vaccination numbers on campus. Now, information regarding the universities’ COVID-19 case numbers will instead be available through the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) community reports.
“We are no longer publishing a dashboard at the institutional level, which is similar to what a number of institutions and entities are doing, such as Fayette County,” UK spokesperson Jay Blanton told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “We are moving from a status of responding to a pandemic to continual management of a transmissible virus, much like the flu and other public health issues that will require community support.”
Blanton cited the widespread availability of COVID-19 data as a reason for the change. “We don’t require either testing or vaccination as both can now be widely found in other places, so we don’t have one rigorous source of information for vaccine rates in our community,” Blanton said.
Students and faculty are still asked to report vaccinations to the university. Blanton said that incentives will still be offered for students and faculty who get vaccinated. Masks are encouraged, but no longer required.
UK’s move away from the dashboard format follows a similar announcement from the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department (LFCHD), who stopped posting daily public COVID-19 updates on Aug. 1 in favor of a weekly model.
“This change is consistent with health departments across Kentucky and is a natural progression during a pandemic,” the LFCHD said in a statement.
As of mid-August, Transylvania University has also moved away from a regular COVID-19 dashboard, and will instead be looking to CDC updates to provide public information, spokesperson Megan Moloney told the Herald-Leader. According to Transylvania’s COVID-19 website, the campus community will be notified in the event that community levels spike.
Eastern Kentucky University is also moving away from a public dashboard, though spokesperson Bryan Makinen told the Herald-Leader that the dashboard could return if another variant arises.
“Given the prevalence of COVID-19, and the institution of preventative measures such as vaccines, cases are being monitored in Student Health Services for those who are symptomatic,” Makinen said. “We will institute a variety of tools, including a dashboard, should a variant emerge that warrants close monitoring of community spread.”
Fayette County Public School District is following suit. On Aug. 9, Superintendent Demetrus Liggins told Fayette County families that the district will no longer send weekly COVID-19 email updates.
As of Sept. 1, the CDC considers Fayette County a high risk area for COVID-19 transmission, based on new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.
