Penn State reports fewer than 100 new COVID-19 cases for 2nd straight update, encourages caution
For the second consecutive update, Penn State has reported fewer than 100 new COVID-19 cases — the first time since early September that’s been the case.
According to data from the university’s COVID-19 dashboard, which is updated twice weekly, the University Park campus has added 91 new student cases since Friday’s update, bringing the total number of infected among students and employees to 3,548 — with 195 of those cases considered active, based on university estimates. Two new employees were also found positive.
“We are seeing the number of positive test results continuing to decline among our students at University Park, but the next month is critical as we are seeing the number of cases of COVID-19 increase in Pennsylvania and across the country,” said Kelly Wolgast, director of Penn State’s COVID-19 Operations Control Center. “As temperatures grow colder and we enter flu season, we need to do all we can to prevent us from facing both COVID-19 and influenza.
“I strongly encourage everyone in our community to get the flu vaccine and we must continue taking health precautions, including wearing masks, social distancing and avoiding large gatherings.”
From Friday to Sunday, 33 students tested positive out of the 264 on-demand tests with results (with 136 tests since Oct. 2 still pending), while no students tested positive out of the 615 random-screened tests with results (with 211 tests pending). No new employees tested positive.
Because of the way testing is now done, the 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.
Some 52 University Park students are now in on-campus isolation for confirmed infections, while another 48 are in quarantine for potential infections — an overall decrease from 91 and 59, respectively, on Friday. Based on numbers released by university President Eric Barron, that puts the isolation capacity at 21% and the quarantine capacity at 32%, 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.
Most off-campus students choose to quarantine and isolate from their own residences.
Despite the numbers declining, there remains cause for concern in Centre County. Barron, like most experts and officials, has also pointed toward community transmission and hospital capacity as critical factors in fighting the pandemic. And Dr. David Rubin, director of PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told the Centre Daily Times those factors are not working in the county’s favor.
According to data provided by the Mount Nittany Medical Center, there were 17 hospitalizations last week — compared to four total from Sept. 1-18. That’s not a good sign, considering the hospital has already implemented its Surge Capacity Plan and winter, with its expected rise in cases, has not yet hit.
Rubin also pointed to the increase in hospitalizations as a result of wider transmission among the non-student community, saying “there’s no doubt about it.”
“Pennsylvania is rapidly devolving, moving very much in the direction of Michigan and Ohio, and Illinois and Wisconsin — and we may just be a few weeks behind,” Rubin said. “And you guys are already at surge capacity. So I don’t want to understate it: It’s a really concerning concept.”
Several faculty- and student-based groups have repeatedly expressed concern that the university hasn’t done enough to mitigate the spread. Penn State’s Faculty Senate recently passed a resolution, calling on the university to provide more COVID-19 testing, greater transparency and universal pre-arrival testing before the spring semester — requests that have been echoed by groups such as the American Association of University Professors and the Coalition for a Just University.
“We still think all the same measures need to be implemented,” Sarah Townsend, an organizer for CJU/PSU, said last week. “Now’s not the time for complacency.”
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 3,352 cases — with most coming in the State College area.
Based on the state’s early warning monitoring system, which is updated every Friday and remains clearly impacted by the student population, news is mixed. Centre County’s testing positivity rate fell to 5.6% Friday after reaching 7.6% the week prior and exceeding 12% at its peak. The county’s incidence rate is also no longer the worst in the state — it’s the third-worst — after dropping to 188 infections per 100,000 residents over the last seven days, which is a decrease from the previous week’s 278.9.
However, one key metric has increased. Over the last week, 2% of county emergency department visits were due to COVID-19 — which is an increase over last week’s 1.7%. And Centre County’s decline in cases and testing positivity was projected nearly a month ago by Rubin, who expected numbers to tail off before rising again as temperatures dropped.
“This is not the moment with the winter coming to declare an end to this,” Rubin told the CDT last week. “Right now, we’re going back into the belly of the beast. We’re going back into the middle of this.”
Elsewhere at Penn State, on other campuses, the impact of COVID-19 has varied. To date, there have been 320 total cases at campuses outside of the main campus: Altoona (209), Erie (28), Harrisburg (19), Hershey (19), Scranton (12), Berks (11), Abington (4), Fayette (3), New Kensington (3), Schuylkill (3), Beaver (2), Brandywine (2), Hazleton (2), DuBois (1), Lehigh Valley (1) and Mont Alto (1). Altoona, which had an outbreak several weeks ago, had no new cases from Friday to Sunday.
Eleven Penn State employees so far — 10 at University Park, one at New Kensington — have tested positive through the university.
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.
