Northwestern’s COVID-19 positivity rate decreased slightly last week after an overall upward trend during the past four weeks. After three weeks of mandated testing requirements for all undergraduate students at the start of the quarter, the positivity rate stayed around 2% for three weeks, averaging 2.48% with a declining number of tests taken each week..
Northwestern revised its definition of the Campus Activity Levels framework after resuming in-person classes, changing the protocol about the current level of COVID-19 on campus. First introduced in Fall Quarter 2020, Campus Activity Levels are color-coded statuses indicating the safety of increasing in-person campus activities based on external and internal factors. The four levels are.
Despite reporting 686 new positive COVID-19 cases last week, Northwestern will resume in-person classes and activities Tuesday. In a Friday email to NU students, Vice President for Operations Luke Figora affirmed the end of Wildcat Wellness to be Tuesday. He added that students will be required to complete another COVID-19 test by Friday and said.
bakerni@grinnell.edu
Low COVID-19 positivity rates at Grinnell College have driven the administration to relax previously strict pandemic precautions, but after close to a year of the College’s highly restrictive safety policy, some students are questioning the changes – as well as what they may reveal about the College’s priorities.
The College’s decision to
invite back all first-year students for Spring Term 1 and to invite second- and fourth-year students for Spring Term 2, as well as the gradual relaxation of COVID-19 precautions, has been based off consistently low positivity rates this year.
Only one student living in Grinnell has tested positive for COVID-19 since the week of March 1. Since the beginning of the Spring semester, 16 students out of 907 have tested positive for COVID-19, as well as one reported positive case from an additional site.