Penn State’s COVID-19 case count increases by 286 students, boosting total to 2,970
For the ninth straight COVID-19 dashboard update, Penn State has added more than 200 new coronavirus cases to its overall count.
According to data from the dashboard, which is updated twice weekly, the University Park campus has added 286 new student cases since Friday’s update, bringing the total number of infected to 2,970 — with 508 of those cases considered active, based on university estimates.
Five University Park employees have also been infected since Sept. 25, with those cases still considered active.
From Friday to Sunday, 95 students tested positive for the virus out of the 529 on-demand tests with results, while no students tested positive out of the 613 random-screened tests with results. Some 177 on-demand tests since Aug. 28 still have results pending, while another 702 overall random-screened tests are pending.
Because of the way testing is now done, the recent random-screened tests often won’t show positives until Friday’s update. The number of Friday-Sunday cases listed directly above also do not include the new results from old pending tests, which explains the other additional positive cases since the last update.
“We are seeing some declines in our positive results, particularly in the on-demand surveillance testing, which is encouraging, but it is too early to draw conclusions about a possible declining trend,” said Kelly Wolgast, director of the university’s COVID-19 Operations Control Center. “As the weather gets colder, it’s very important that members of our community get the flu vaccine and continue to adhere to public health guidelines, including masking, social distancing and avoiding large gatherings.”
Some 110 University Park students are now in on-campus isolation, while another 46 are in quarantine — an overall decrease from 134 and 65, respectively, on Friday. Based on numbers recently released by university President Eric Barron, that puts the quarantine capacity at 31% and the isolation capacity at 44%, although there are an additional 140 spaces if necessary and the university has confirmed it will seek spaces in downtown hotels if more are required.
Still, the rising case counts have continued to cause concern. Michelle Rodino-Colocino, the local chapter president of the American Association of University Professors, has joined a chorus of others — such as Coalition for a Just University — in calling for more widespread testing in the fall and universal pre-arrival testing in the spring.
“I feel we owe our students a better experience during the pandemic, even if they’re fortunate not to have the coronavirus,” said Rodino-Colocino, who teaches several classes as an associate professor of communications and women’s studies. “But, at this point, students have seen the coronavirus one way or another. They either have a friend or roommate or someone in their circle that has it, so it’s a very real fear they’re having to live with.
“I’ve never seen them so stressed before.”
Barron has repeatedly pointed to three metrics as the most important in battling the pandemic: quarantine and isolation spaces, community transmission and hospital capacity. Many experts also cited community transmission and hospital capacity as the most integral, but there’s disagreement over where Centre County is headed with those last two points.
The university believes transmission has been minimal so far, and not without reason. According to a Penn State research project, dubbed “Data 4 Action,” 2.2% of the tested population in the Centre Region had a positive antibody test that indicated possible prior exposure to the virus. That’s meaningful because, during a presentation Monday night to the State College Borough Council, researchers explained the rate of those positive tests has remained relatively consistent, suggesting the community outside Penn State has been minimally impacted.
But experts such as Dr. David Rubin, director of PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, believe Centre County is in a highly precarious position because of Penn State’s numbers. Not only has most of central Pennsylvania seen its rates spike, at least at times over the past month or so, but just because community transmission might have been minimal in the past doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way, Rubin said.
“What I’m not seeing is the improvements in Centre County,” Rubin told the Centre Daily Times on Friday. “I’m seeing this thing march along and, as it gets colder out there, at some point it spills over in the community and starts to race. ... I’m just not sure how much in the know, how much control, the university really has over this in Centre County. And, if I was a Centre County resident, that’s concerning.”
Hospitalizations at the Mount Nittany Medical Center also remain relatively low for now — although they are currently on the rise, according to the data. A Mount Nittany spokesperson told the CDT on Sept. 18 that it had seen just four COVID-positive patients admitted at that point in the month but, according to the state’s hospital preparedness dashboard, there are now eight patients simultaneously hospitalized.
The hospital has not yet had to deal with 10 or more such patients at once, according to both the data and past interviews.
Based on the state’s early warning monitoring system, which is clearly impacted by the student population, there remains cause for concern. Centre County’s overall incidence rate and positivity rate both fell but still remain the highest in the commonwealth.
The monitoring system, which is updated every Friday, shows the county’s incidence rate currently stands at 291.1 infections per 100,000 residents over the last seven days — a decrease from the previous week’s 350.1. Centre County’s positivity rate is also a state-worst 9.4%, although it was at 12% for the last monitoring system update.
The state Department of Health pinpointed the county as an area of concern three weeks ago, and a free pop-up testing site — that can test up to 440 daily — was extended Tuesday and will continue through Saturday at the Nittany Mall.
“I have directed my staff to assist Centre County in identifying localized containment and mitigation efforts to reduce the spread and facilitate communications between large employers, county officials and local governments,” Secretary of Health Rachel Levine said in a written statement.
From March to mid-August, before the official Penn State student move-in, the county had 392 total cases of the coronavirus. Since then, it’s added another 2,779 cases — with most coming in the State College area.
Elsewhere at Penn State, on other campuses, the impact of COVID-19 has varied. Altoona has been the hardest hit, with 145 cases after a recent outbreak. To date, there have been 217 total cases at campuses outside of the main campus: Altoona (145), Erie (22), Hershey (18), Scranton (12), Berks (5), Harrisburg (3), New Kensington (3), Beaver (2), Brandywine (2), Fayette (2), Hazleton (2) and Schuylkill (1).
Seven Penn State employees so far — six at University Park, one at New Kensington — have tested positive through the university. Six of those cases came within the last two weeks, and all six are still considered active.
The case counts reported by the county, via the state Department of Health, and Penn State often don’t match up because the university has acknowledged there is some lag between when it reports the numbers to the state DOH and when the state DOH releases the numbers publicly.
Penn State’s next update to its COVID-19 dashboard will occur sometime Friday.
This story was originally published October 6, 2020 at 5:59 PM.
