AUBURN — Out of the 21,315 Auburn students who were tested for COVID-19 prior to their return to campus as part of the state's GuideSafe program, 859 tested positive, according to data released by the university on Thursday.
That's a positivity rate of 4.03% from a period of testing that ran from early this month through Aug. 21
The vast majority of those cases were "either asymptomatic or exhibited extremely mild conditions," according to the release. Many of the positive cases were identified as students not yet on campus. Those who were found to be on campus were immediately isolated and quarantined.
“These numbers show we had a low positivity rate among our students as they returned to campus,” Auburn University Medical Clinic director Dr. Fred Kam said. “Through continued mitigation efforts and everyone’s help in being proactive we aim to keep these numbers low.”
Those 859 positive students do not include the 202 found through on-campus testing last week. In all, 217 of 901 people tested during the first week of classes tested positive, which is a rate of more than 24%.
None of those new cases required hospitalization, and Auburn's quarantine housing was at less than 50% capacity as of earlier this week.
“Not unlike other campuses throughout the nation, Auburn anticipated that its COVID-19 positive case numbers would likely increase as students returned for the fall semester,” Kam said. “The majority of students who tested positive had not attended any in-person classes, and the few who did were all wearing masks and had been socially distancing.”
Still, Auburn will continue to be vigilant. Senior vice president off student affairs Bobby Woodard emailed the student body Tuesday to announce that all campus events (other than athletics) will be limited to no more than 50 people through Oct. 6 and that students' actions could determine whether the university is able to finish the fall semester on campus.
The university will also initiate sentinel testing the week after Labor Day, whereby students faculty and staff will be randomly selected to voluntarily participate.
“COVID is truly a situation in which every individual’s actions count,” Woodard wrote. “If we are going to preserve on-campus education, we have to be all-in, both on and off campus. One night out in a crowd is not worth the potential consequences the entire campus will face if the virus continues to spread in our community. We must be vigilant in doing our part for the common good. This will not be forever.”
Josh Vitale is the Auburn beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. You can follow him on Twitter at @JoshVitale. To reach him by email, click here. If you enjoy Josh's coverage, consider a digital subscription that will give you access to all of it.
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