Eighty students and 12 faculty and staff members have tested positive for COVID-19, according to Ohio State’s COVID-19 dashboard. via Safe and Healthy Buckeyes website
Eighty students and 12 faculty and staff members have tested positive for COVID-19, Ohio State announced Tuesday, along with its new COVID-19 dashboard.
The current data reflects results from testing done on students Aug. 14-22 and faculty and staff Aug. 1-22 and will be updated weekly, according to a university press release. The number of positive cases is the total number over the testing period and does not represent current active cases.
“Information is a powerful tool in stopping the spread of the virus, and we want you to have as much information as possible,” President-elect Kristina M. Johnson said in a universitywide email.
After ramping up its testing for move-in and surveillance programs, Ohio State has tested thousands of students but had previously not reported any COVID-19 case numbers despite announcing July 31 it would do so.
The university has tested more than 7,700 university community members, including undergraduate, graduate and professional students, and faculty and staff. According to the university’s data, 1.16 percent of the students tested have tested positive; 1.44 percent of the faculty and staff tested have tested positive.
The University of Alabama reported 531 positive cases since Aug. 19; the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill reported 505 positive cases from tests conducted between Aug. 17-23; the University of Texas at Austin has had five positive cases since Aug. 11.
Dean of the College of Public Health Amy Fairchild said about 15 percent of those who have tested positive are showing some kind of mild symptoms.
University spokesperson Chris Davey said the university would review the “totality of the facts” and that the testing data is “one piece of a broad picture.”
Other data points include the availability of personal protective equipment and the available capacity of the quarantine and isolation rooms, Davey said. According to the dashboard, of the 414 total beds for isolation and quarantine housing, 34 students who have tested positive are in isolation housing and 29 students who may have been exposed to someone who tested positive are in quarantine housing.
Ohio State released the data to the public at 5 p.m. Tuesday. The university follows other institutions that released data earlier, including West Virginia University, University of Kentucky, Syracuse University and the University of Colorado Boulder, among others.
Ohio State is the 10th university of the 14 Big Ten schools to have some method of reporting COVID-19 data, whether through a dashboard or a statement online. Indiana University is developing a COVID-19 dashboard which is planned to come out at the end of this week, according to the university’s spokesperson. The University of Illinois, University of Minnesota and Rutgers University are not currently reporting data online.
The Ohio State dashboard can be found on the Safe and Healthy Buckeyes website.
