Since the start of the pandemic, people have come to rely on the Ohio Department of Health website for up to date information on how widespread the virus is in our communities, but how accurate is it?

If you're looking at the state health department's website to see how many students have COVID-19 in your kid's school - you may find numbers that are far different from reality.

The process is supposed to be clear: schools report to the local health department, who report to the state.

Austintown schools report 26 active COVID cases on the school's website - but on the ODH website it says there are no new cases reported.

Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff acknowledges there could be a delay.... But that doesn't paint the whole picture, either.

For example, Boardman Schools reporting 140 student cases for the year so far – while ODH only shows 82, nearly half as many. And Boardman only reports 10 new cases since this week, so that doesn't explain the difference, either.

Poland Local Schools reports 13 current student cases but on the ODH website, it again says "no cases reported." It also says they've only had two positive student cases cumulatively since the start of the school year.

"We've sent kids home, we're following all the rules," said Poland superintendent Craig Hockenberry. "We're documenting them in real live time, this morning we had 12 cases and we just had another one today."

The state's says:
"Schools are required to report cases to their assigned Local Health Department who then report to the Ohio Department of Health." Which is what local superintendents and health officials say they're doing every single week - sharing the up to date numbers.

You can see several cases where the numbers on the state site have not changed since August.

"If we only have 'two cases' but I'm telling you 13 right now that was just today, if they're only showing us at two they're quite a bit off," said Hockenberry. "Eleven kids is a big difference."