After a slight uptick in cases last week, Southern Utah University reported 39 new cases of COVID-19 among its campus community in an update to the COVID-19 Case Count page Thursday.
32 students, faculty and staff who attend classes or work on campus tested positive, while seven of the new cases occurred among the group of online students, remote employees and high schoolers taking courses at SUU through concurrent enrollment who make up the “off-campus” category.
Thursday’s total is the highest number of off-campus cases reported in a single week since the university began tracking cases on Aug. 31, and the lowest number among the “on campus” group since the week of Oct. 29 to Nov. 4.
The 39 counted from Jan. 28 to Feb. 3 is a slight decrease from the 52 reported from Jan. 21-27. In total, 257 members of SUU’s community have been infected in the five weeks since the new year began. Five weeks into the Fall 2020 Semester, the university had only reported 35 cases.
With 21 weeks of the 2020-21 academic year now in the books, 772 self-reported cases of COVID-19 have been logged on the COVID-19 Case Count page.
Asymptomatic students can book appointments for testing in the Sharwan Smith Student Center Ballroom Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. on the Testing, Contact Tracing and Quarantine page. Drive-up symptomatic testing is available at the J. Reuben Clark Center (formerly known as the Alumni House) by appointment Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to noon.
There was only one new fatality reported by the Southwest Utah Public Health Department in Iron County over the last week — a hospitalized woman over the age of 85 reported Sunday. The pandemic has claimed the lives of 25 Iron County residents since it arrived in the United States in February of 2020.
SWUPHD reported 13 new cases in Iron County Friday. Over the last seven days, an average of 25.7 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported daily in the county — the second consecutive week where the average fell after 36.1 new cases were reported per day during the previous seven-day period.
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Story by: Connor Sanders
eic@suunews.net
Photo by: Mitchell Quartz
