With the university now in fully remote instruction for the remainder of the fall semester, Penn State reported on Tuesday 73 new COVID-19 cases at University Park since its last update a week ago.
The new cases in the university’s updated COVID-19 dashboard bring the campus community’s total to 4,918 since Aug. 7, including 42 employee cases. Of those, 44 are considered active. Three students are in on-campus isolation and two in on-campus quarantine as of Tuesday.
Tuesday’s update includes 62 student positives — 61 from 683 completed on-demand tests and one from 202 random screenings — from testing during the week of Nov. 20-26. No positives resulted from weekend testing.
Six employees tested positive out of 303 on-demand and random screening tests the week of Nov. 20-26 and one employee tested positive out of 30 on-demand tests over the weekend.
The remaining positives in Tuesday’s dashboard update were results that had previously been pending for the week of Nov. 13-19.
Thanksgiving break brought an end to in-person classes for the semester, as previously planned, and remote instruction will continue through the end of final exams on Dec. 18. With the move, Penn State has concluded its random testing program for the semester.
While most students living on campus have departed, those that remain in university residence halls are required to have weekly COVID-19 testing at the Hintz Family Alumni Center through Jan. 18, the day before spring semester classes start.
Walk-up on-demand testing will be available at the Alumni Center for all students — living on or off campus — from noon to 5 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays through Jan. 18. The university urged any students living off campus to be tested regularly.
The university will continue updating its COVID-19 dashboard with test results on Tuesdays and Fridays through the end of the semester
In the week leading up to Thanksgiving break, about 15,000 University Park students received voluntary departure testing. Those who did test positive were told to isolate on campus or in a single-occupancy space off campus before leaving, or if they did choose to return home to take appropriate precautions to self-isolate.
Penn State expects to return to in-person classes for the spring semester on Jan. 19 but has not yet announced plans for pre-arrival testing.
Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine recently announced several targeted mitigation measures as cases and hospitalizations across Pennsylvania continue to surge. Among those are recommendations for for colleges and universities, which include testing all students at the beginning of each semester, when returning to campus after a break and to have regular screening testing throughout the semester.
Prior to the start of the fall semester, the university did not require testing of all students, but instead performed targeted testing of about 23,000 students coming to campus from COVID-19 hotspots. Penn State has conducted 39,000 random screening tests and 44,000 on-demand tests throughout the semester to date.
