Penn State’s COVID cases continue to decline. Here’s why — and what infections look like now
For five straight weeks now, Penn State’s COVID-19 cases have continued to decline — so much that one official acknowledged the minimal cases have surpassed even his expectations.
According to the most recent data from the university’s COVID dashboard, which was updated Thursday, there were just 27 cases from University Park students and employees between Oct. 7-13. The previous week’s cases stood at 30, before that 57 and, before that, 74, 118 and 163.
During that same span last fall, those weekly cases ranged between 196 and 694.
“I would certainly attribute this change, in large part, to vaccination (in combination with the large proportion of students who were likely exposed last year, as well),” Matthew Ferrari, director of the university’s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, said in a written statement. “The continued masking, freely available testing, and other mitigation efforts on campus are helping to keep the campus and learning environment relatively safe, which allows the university to return to our primary mission.”
More than 83% of University Park students and employees have provided proof of vaccination so far, significantly higher than Centre County’s vaccination rate, which is close to the state average of 59.5% fully vaccinated. That disparity has likely contributed to university numbers that compare favorably to even less-populated areas of the county.
Of University Park’s 40,000-plus students, only 16 tested positive over the most recent seven days of testing. In the Bellefonte/Pleasant Gap area — or the 16823 ZIP code that contains about 27,000 people — there were 80 cases from Oct. 9-15. Even Port Matilda, in the 16870 ZIP code with about 7,000 people, saw 18 infections this past week.
“It has surpassed my expectation, but the confirmation of consistently low levels in (university) wastewater leads me to believe that this is indeed a real phenomenon and not just a change in the detectability,” added Ferrari, explaining the low university numbers are likely not simply a result of failing to detect asymptomatic cases, or cases without symptoms.
The county’s numbers have see-sawed the past few weeks, declining then increasing and then declining again to this past week’s 329 infections. Local hospitalizations at Mount Nittany Medical Center remain a concern, however, as hospitalizations more than tripled from June to September. So far in October, there is an average of 32 COVID patients on any given day in the 260-bed hospital.
At Penn State, the stark difference between this fall and last fall can be attributed to a multitude of reasons outside of vaccination. For instance, the university previously tested about 25% of students on arrival, compared to testing all students upon arrival this fall. Instead of “random surveillance” testing, which saw about 1% of the student population tested randomly every day, the university transitioned this fall to essentially testing the unvaccinated once every week. Walk-up testing and symptomatic testing on demand also remain available.
Citing studies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the vaccinated are 8 times less likely to be infected and 25 times less likely to experience hospitalization or death compared to the unvaccinated.
Penn State has stopped short of a student vaccine mandate, despite calls from students, faculty and community leaders. But, due to President Joe Biden’s executive order from last month, it is now requiring all University Park employees (without medical or religious exemptions) to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 8.
Twice-weekly updates to the university’s COVID cases can be found at virusinfo.psu.edu. The next update will come Tuesday.
