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Department of Veterans Affairs
COVID-19 National Summary

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is the largest integrated health system in the United States with more than nine million enrolled Veterans and over six million Veterans receiving healthcare each year. VA employs nearly 380,000 individuals including more than 350,000 professionals within the Veterans Health Administration.

This report summarizes what we know about the status of COVID-19 patients who have been tested or treated at VA facilities.

This Power BI Dashboard illustrates national surveillance data.

* Note about the Report Functionality

Click on these circles to toggle between tables which break down vaccinations by facility, decade of age, race/ethnicity and sex  Click on the circles to toggle between tables which break down vaccinations by facility, decade of age, race/ethnicity and sex.

Click on this symbol for additional information  Click on this symbol for additional information.

Note: There are often further explanations if you hover over objects with your mouse.

This Power BI Dashboard illustrates national surveillance data.

Note about Medical Centers that have transitioned to Cerner Millenium

On October 24th, 2020, VA started transitioning from VistA to Cerner's Millennium as its Electronic Health Record (EHR). COVID-19 surveillance data will temporarily be incomplete from some medical centers as we work to integrate Cerner data into our system. Thank you for your patience.

More information and resources

Definitions

On September 29, 2021, a one-time update to definitions was made. This increases the historical number of cases, as well as case-related events such as deaths, and continues to align with CDC definitions. Therefore, the increase in cumulative counts between September 28 and September 29, 2021 should not be interpreted as a single day increase.

Running total of all patients tested by PCR or antigen, or treated at a VA facility for known or probable COVID-19. This includes Veterans, employees, and non-Veterans.Patients tested or treated at a VA facility for known or probable COVID-19 who have neither died nor reached convalescent status.Patients tested or treated at a VA facility for known or probable COVID-19 who are either post-hospital discharge, or 14 days after their last positive test, whichever comes later.All deaths among VA patients known to have tested positive for COVID-19 and died within 30 days. "Inpatient" indicates the death occurred in a VA hospital. "Known other" indicates the death was reported to VA but occurred elsewhere.We group Active and Convalescent Cases into the following categories: Veteran, Employee, Veteran-Employee and All Other. "All Other" includes civilians admitted to VA hospitals as humanitarian cases, Tricare patients, Active Duty Military, and other groups.

All the vaccinations administered according to VA records - Pfizer, Moderna, and Janssen - are tallied in this report. Each of these options have been deemed to be effective and safe, and have an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The tables break the numbers down as follows:

  1. Who we vaccinated*: Veteran, VA Employee**, or Federal Partner***.
  2. How many of those received a full vaccination course (2 doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or a single dose of the Janssen vaccine).
  3. The number of total doses administered, as follows:
    1. "Dose 1 of 2" refers to the initial dose of a 2-dose vaccine series, that is, Pfizer or Moderna.
    2. "Dose 2 of 2" refers to the final dose of a 2-dose series.
    3. "Dose 1 of 1" refers to the single dose needed for the Janssen vaccine.
    4. Additional doses count COVID-19 mRNA (Pfizer and Moderna) vaccines documented as the first dose administered after an individual's primary course. Bivalent or doses documented as subsequent additional doses are not considered in this figure.
  4. Cumulative totals are provided by facility. Totals for smaller sites from a multi-division facility are included in the overall totals.
  5. If a particular subcategory has a count of less than 10, it is included in the total for the next higher category. That is done to protect patient privacy.

*Veterans that undergo vaccination because they are a VA employee or Federal Partner are counted under those latter categories, and not included in the “Veteran” category. That is to prevent double-counting.

**VA Employees may include volunteers, rotating clinical staff, or VA employees who have received vaccinations at a facility but are not specifically assigned to that facility.

***Federal Partners include Front Line Staff and First Responders that work in other agencies and were directed to receive their vaccination at a VA facility.

Frequently Asked Questions

This public-facing report provides the same aggregated information that is available to VA leaders and clinicians, and displays all known VA COVID-19 cases that are tested or treated at a VA facility. It leverages VA’s unique national data infrastructure and informatics capabilities to create a timely, automated biosurveillance process. Beginning May 4, 2020, the VA COVID-19 report incorporates deaths reported to VA from the community.

The tool also provides a display of non-VA data (community cases diagnosed and treated at non-VA healthcare facilities) provided by Johns Hopkins University, Center for Systems Science and Engineering. This is included to provide a general picture of the extent of COVID-19 illness in the community where a VA facility is located. The data cannot be used to compare VA infection or mortality rates with the community because of differences in population risk, test availability, and follow-up.

As an integrated healthcare system with a common electronic health record, VA has the ability to extract and compile information in near-real-time from all its facilities. A number of complementary approaches are then applied to this information to identify and validate COVID-19 cases. These include:

  1. Direct query of laboratory test results
  2. Examination of administrative data such as assignment to a dedicated COVID-19 bed
  3. Interrogation of clinician text notes using artificial intelligence approaches such as machine learning, and natural language processing to capture insights that would be missed using only structured administrative or lab data.

These approaches are subject to ongoing human review by clinical experts in infectious disease, public health, and critical care to validate and refine our approach.

The data represented here are updated from our automated biosurveillance system multiple times a day.Our tool reflects the most accurate and timely information that VA can assemble at this time. Ongoing human review is used to verify results and refine our automated approaches. However, we know from past experience that the true extent and impact of an epidemic only emerges over time, and is particularly dependent on having widely available and accurate testing throughout the community. Our tool and our data will be updated as the medical community’s knowledge and capabilities for COVID-19 evolve.At the bottom of the page, there are hyperlinks to download data in aggregate, de-identified form in CSV and JSON formats.

Additional Links