New Map Shows ‘Active’ Coronavirus Cases At NYC Schools

NEW YORK CITY — A new map gives New York City parents a near-daily update on which school buildings have positive coronavirus cases.

The Daily COVID Case Map launched this week and school officials promise it will be updated Sundays through Fridays to show “active” cases.

Colored dots scattered over the map show individual buildings and whether a whole facility, or just a classroom, has been closed for quarantine after a confirmed coronavirus case. John F. Kennedy Jr. School in Queens, for example, is the only school in the city under a 14-day closure, according to the map.

The map will take the place of lists of affected schools released regularly by Department of Education officials, said spokesperson Miranda Barbot. Sending out those lists would be “duplicative,” she emailed Patch.

But the new map appears to have some limitations. It only shows “active confirmed cases of COVID-19 and which require either temporary classroom or full-building closures,” according to a DOE release.

This means past cases reported at schools won’t show up on the map.

It also makes it difficult to track how many schools per day had confirmed coronavirus cases. School officials, for example, recently informed the public by a release that 39 schools had positive COVID-19 cases over the weekend.

The new map will take the place of those releases, Barbot said.

The new Daily COVID Case Map can be seen here.