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* Charlie Schlenker at WGLT…
Illinois State University President Larry Dietz said Monday he’s closely monitoring the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases among students.
The current tally is 273 ISU student cases in just over a week of classes. Dietz said several things in addition to the raw case count affect any potential decision whether to close the campus.
“It will have to do with isolation capacity. It will have to do with how many folks are hospitalized, and thankfully at this point I’m not aware of any. It’s a moving target we’re monitoring, so I don’t have any specific date or time,” said Dietz.
Dietz said there are 24 students in isolation through on-campus housing, and the campus has plenty of space left for more isolation cases.
Dietz said he believes on-campus behavior by students and staff is in good compliance with mask and social distancing policy. He said he’s aware that off campus and on the weekends, that behavior has not been as consistently safe. He urged students to observe safety protocols and avoid large gatherings.
(A)t the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, between 35,000 and 40,000 students returned to campus to begin a mix of online and in-person classes that started Monday. The university has said it believes it can contain the virus, partly by testing students twice a week and processing 10,000 tests a day on campus.
The university expected that between 200 and 300 students would arrive on campus already infected with Covid-19 and that total new cases among students, faculty and staff would reach about 500 this semester. Two university professors, Nigel Goldenfeld, a professor of physics, and Sergei Maslov, a professor of bioengineering and physics, estimated that without the school’s program of frequent testing, contact tracing and isolation, the virus would spread to 20,000 students within a month.
The university’s modeling predicts that most transmission of the virus will occur at restaurants, bars and parties and in classrooms. Its saliva-based test received emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration earlier this month.
* News-Gazette…
According to UI campus testing data, there were 263 positive cases in the five days from Wednesday through Sunday, with the average rolling positivity rate for the most recent five days being 0.74 percent.
New cases from campus testing for the five days included 30 cases Wednesday, 59 cases Thursday, 65 cases Friday, 50 cases Saturday and 59 cases Sunday.
* Illinois Radio Network…
The mayors of both Champaign and Urbana, the home of the University of Illinois, have issued orders requiring bar and restaurant patrons to to stay seated most of the time. In Champaign, Mayor Deb Feinen issued an order limiting customer seating at Campustown restaurants and bars to outdoors areas only now through Labor Day. Emergency orders from the two mayors also set crowd limits and require face masks and social distancing at private parties on and near the U of I campus.
The University of Illinois requires all students and staff to be tested for COVID-19 twice a week. A study from Harvard and Yale suggests that is the minimum threshold to safely open.
* DeKalb Daily Chronicle…
DeKalb Mayor Jerry Smith said Monday that ’several large gatherings’ were held around Northern Illinois University campus over the weekend, and said he met Monday with NIU President Lisa Freeman and other leaders to talk COVID-19 virus prevention.
“I think everybody is concerned about Northern,” Smith said. “And the fact that there may be not only some positivity but over the weekend there were several large gatherings.” […]
For students, they can pay a $7.90 per credit hour health fee to utilize nasal swab testing services at Northwestern Medicine Student Health Center in the Health Services Building on campus. Testing for students living off campus or in Greek housing is not required, the website states.
“Those who do not should seek out testing from their local providers,” she said.
* WNIU…
Rockford University is a much smaller private school but have had to take their own precautions. Randy Worden is the university’s VP for Student Life. They have 350 students living on-campus, which is what they expected. Over the summer, he says they thought it could be much fewer because of safety restrictions.
“The actual reality has been kind of the opposite of that,” he said. “It seems like people were so ready to have a different experience than what they were having, maybe at home. Students were willing to say, ‘Okay, I understand it’s not going to be 100% of normal kind of collegiate experience, but if it’s 70 or 75, that’s good enough.”
RU removed around half of the furniture in common areas. Buildings cut occupancy in half or capped them at 50 people.
In classes, available seats have signs taped to them to try and ensure distancing. RU has installed yards of plexiglass around campus, especially in buildings and offices where hundreds of students have to interact with one person.
* Tribune…
Northwestern University’s campus in Evanston is going to feel less crowded this fall, with residence hall capacity reduced to about 70% and more than half of all employees still working from home, school officials said Tuesday.
But those estimates didn’t fully assuage concerns from residents that students will instead move into neighborhood apartments and throw raucous parties, potentially accelerating the spread of COVID-19 in a suburb that has so far avoided an uncontrollable outbreak.
Residents raised the issue Tuesday evening during a 90-minute Zoom meeting, billed as a “community town hall,” to discuss NU’s plan for repopulating its suburban campus when classes begin next month.
In Chicago, Loyola University has closed its dorms and plans to host most classes online. DePaul University plans to offer classes in-person and online.
* Peoria Journal Star…
Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington reported 40 total COVID cases among its student population. They have returned home to isolate or are doing so in off-campus housing of their own or in university-provided housing.
* Daily Eastern News…
Two Eastern unions are urging Eastern to “put the safety of students, employees and the community first” as the university opens this semester.
The two unions, AFSCME Local 981, which represents building service, clerical, technical and food service workers, and University Professionals of Illinois Local 4100’s Eastern chapter which represents faculty and academic support professionals, are contacting Eastern after the university’s administration ordered clerical and technical employees back to campus after months of successful work from home. […]
“We’ve tried to work with the EIU administration to protect employees, students and the community, but the answer to our proposals has consistently been ‘No’,” AFSCME Council 31 staff representative Natalie Nagel said. “EIU claims it treats employees like family. So why aren’t they enacting common-sense health and safety protocols?”
* WJBC…
Officials at Illinois Wesleyan University announced 11 additional students have tested positive for coronavirus.
“We determined that all 11 new cases are connected to the outbreak announced last week, stemming from off-campus social gatherings in the week before classes began, where the consistent use of masks and physical distancing did not occur,” according to a news release Monday.
The outbreak now consists of 30 students.
* Daily Egyptian editorial…
Originally, SIU was not going to inform the public of COVID-19 outbreaks on campus. It cited privacy concerns as the reason and refused to even release general numbers.
Although SIU eventually reversed its decision, the university will only provide one weekly generic update.
These weekly updates provide a false sense of security. The statistics published do not show every positive case on or off campus, as it is optional for students, faculty and staff who test positive for COVID to report that they work at or attend the university. Currently, the updates do not disclose any locations or the number of students in quarantine.
Additionally, anyone not living in Jackson County will not be included in the SIU count if they test positive for the virus and inform the university.
*** UPDATE *** WILL reporter…
Interesting tale of two universities here:
UIUC:
Rolling COVID positivity rate: 0.7%
COVID tests conducted: 105K
Total enrollment (as of Fall 2019): 51,196ISU:
Rolling COVID positivity rate : 19.3%
COVID tests conducted: ~2K
Total enrollment (as of Fall 2019): 20,878— Lee V. Gaines (@LeeVGaines) August 26, 2020
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 12:14 pm
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Administration and UPI have a tentative agreement at WIU:
http://www.wiu.edu/global_education/staff.php
No word on any infections. Enrollment is up 2,200
Comment by downstateR Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 12:19 pm
SIUC may want to consider hiring a new PR chief. This isn’t the first time they dropped the ball on this kinda stuff. Seems to me they’ve gone from bad to worse on this Covid thing.
Comment by Alumni Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 12:24 pm
UIUC Dashboard now showing 17,500 tests completed on Monday. Not “As of Monday”… “On Monday”.
97 Positives with a new caveat saying “Some individuals have tested positive multiple times, so the number of infections is lower than the number of positive tests.”
Monday’s positivity rate: .55%
I really think that if we give it a week or two and those ones that arrived on campus positive get isolated quickly that the number of positives will start plummeting.
97 positives at UIUC is a lot different than the same number of positives at other campuses that are making big headlines.
https://go.illinois.edu/COVIDTestingData
I-L-L…
Comment by MiddleGround Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 12:32 pm
Numbers are escalating rapidly at ISU. 353 positive as of this morning. 19.3% positivity rate.
Comment by tea_and_honey Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 12:37 pm
I saw the set-up for student and faculty testing at UIC yesterday. Very interesting. But if this University of Illinois plan doesn’t work, there can be no in-person school for the foreseeable future.
Comment by Groundhog Day Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 12:40 pm
Not sure what happened there…
http://www.wiu.edu/news/newsrelease.php?release_id=17333
Comment by downstateR Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 12:42 pm
I-N-I
I hope the trend continues. SIUE is hoping to begin using the program in the near future
Comment by illdoc Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 12:47 pm
downstateR =Enrollment is up 2,200=
Where did you get this number? I have not heard it, and I teach at WIU. I have heard both new freshmen and transfers are up a little, and that we may have flattened the curve more or less. But 2200? that would represent a 25-33% increase in enrollment over last year… I think your numbers are misrepresenting the situation quite a bit.
Comment by H-W Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 12:49 pm
Now that we have data, can we figure out the likelihood of a student testing positive on-campus compared to not? That could guide some decision making.
Comment by Just Me 2 Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 12:53 pm
We are a WIU retired family . One is taking an original online course and is to do a self check daily. We have driven by campus and do not see the increase. Based on a UPI survey 70% will switch to online only so the at least 500 students based on number of cars are going to be rightly demanding housing refunds.
Comment by Not a Billionaire Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 12:57 pm
HW You may be correct. I believe I heard that number from the President (new student convocation?). I can’t find it anywhere else.
Comment by downstateR Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 1:05 pm
Virus testing at U of I personal experience
I have a research appointment at the U of I plus a very high risk disabled adult son in his own apartment. I require his personal assistance if they are sick or family sick to get tested. I had a low grade fever on Friday. On Monday, I drove to Champaign to an outdoor testing site on West side of campus. Parking was easy and in a field. I saw at least 40 to 45 people socially distanced in line. I parked my car at 11 am and went and stood in line. All but two students had masks on in line and those two put them on before entering the tent. There were two different lines in the tent with three different stations manned by young student workers. At first station a very pleasant young man had me swiped my Id. He looked at his laptop, asked one or two questions to confirm identity, smiled and told me to have good day. Next a young man put a label on a test tube took me to center of tent to a spot socially distanced. He confirmed my name explained to what level my saliva needed to be in the tube, smiled and told me by name to have a nice day. I unscrewed top of test tube, provided saliva to appropriate line, screwed top back on. I then walked to a table by the exit where a young lady was standing. I reached out to hand her the test tube and she smiled and pointed to a rack and asked me to put it in there. She asked if information was on the label was correct, squirted my hands with hand sanitizer, called me by name and told me to have a nice day. At 11:08 am I reentered my car. The young people were caring, happy and you could feel the energy that they were on a mission. At 5:11 am next morning I received an e-mail to a link to my private secure account at the McKinley Health Center that was created by the swipe of my ID when I first entered the tent. Test was negative. I drove out along the west end of campus and did not see one student walking without a mask. The young people manning the tent were so different than the pictures of those partying. For the first time in a long time I felt a sense of hope. If the U of I contact tracing program is as good as their testing, the U of I and students manning the testing tents are showing the way out of this mess and how to live with the virus.
Comment by Almost Retired Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 1:05 pm
Just Me 2 - I’m hoping that people smarter than me at these things can take the first week data from UIUC and draw some conclusions about true positivity rates in the broader population by age, region and other factors
I’m sure it’s been done but I’m not aware of another larger scale involutary total population testing sample other than first week results at UIUC where we have a total population - not just symptomatics or job required tests. Especially people from different regions and States etc. coming together into a single test sample.
Maybe 40,000 people isn’t statistically relevant, but I’m starting to think that at least for this age group the general population positivity rate is somewhere around 1% based on the UIUC numbers. But I’ll leave that to the pros.
Comment by MiddleGround Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 1:08 pm
@ Almost Retired. Glad you were negative. Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
Seems like UIUC has put together a model program. Will be interesting to see how it is modified for our cold weather months.
Comment by Moe Berg Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 1:32 pm
It is now clear that college students have about the same level of intelligence as Trump voters.
Comment by striketoo Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 1:59 pm
UIUC and ISU are different campuses. I don’t think house/yard parties take place at UIUC like I would imagine on a campus like ISU. Also, UIUC likely has many more commuter students.
Comment by Because I said so.... Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 2:00 pm
It seems weird to say
But if UIUC can’t pull off even a partial re-opening, then I don’t think any institution in the country can. You have one university accounting for nearly 1-2 percent of all tests in the entire country, and they’re already mostly on-line.
Comment by Nick Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 2:00 pm
UIUC has put together a model program. The problem of course, is what happens after students go back to their apartments. My 16 year old showed me multiple snapchat posts from student apartment complexes of kids partying together without masks. Someone just posted to facebook that the Red Lion bar was packed without masks. No amount of testing can fix behaviors. We’ll see.
Comment by filmmaker prof Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 2:02 pm
As to the post by the WILL reporter, the only thing interesting about the “tale of two universities” is that the tales are in completely different languages. There’s nothing in that data that provides a meaningful comparison. I hope she knows that, but I doubt it by the way she framed the post. I taught journalism for 15 years; journalism majors basically don’t understand numbers.
Comment by filmmaker prof Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 2:05 pm
@downstateR and H-W
I think what he probably said was that new student enrollment was up to around 2,200 (see chart here: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ef37fXMXYAIU82N?format=jpg)
Overall enrollment looks like it’ll be pretty much the same as last year, but there’s more new students coming this year than last year. New freshman at this point (nothing is official until the 10th day of classes) are close to 1k, after two years of being well under that.
Comment by Scott Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 2:14 pm
Almost Retired, glad your test was negative. I too work at UIUC and get tested regularly. So far the longest I’ve waited on test results has been 5 hours. I hope that my daughter’s High School can implement something like this soon.
Comment by Gruntled University Employee Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 2:17 pm
Scott, Thanks for the clarification.
Seems most folks in Macomb aren’t covidiots regarding masks, but there’s stories from students about parties. Test results should be coming in soon.
Comment by downstateR Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 2:20 pm
===I don’t think house/yard parties take place at UIUC===
I’d share photos from my time at UIUC showing more than a few house parties…but then I’d never make it onto the Supreme Court
You sure you’re not thinking of UIC??
Comment by Stu Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 2:25 pm
No news from SIUE? I know that they still give SIUC more attention but SIUE is actually growing and has about the same enrollment IRRC.
Comment by JS Mill Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 2:36 pm
I think that’s about right Middle ground . Iowa State tested everybody and was about 2% I think that range is about range for the Midwest.
Comment by Not a Billionaire Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 2:59 pm
==I don’t think house/yard parties take place at UIUC==
You’re joking, right? I hope this was sarcasm.
Comment by fs Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 2:59 pm
Maybe make the U of I test available to entire University system?
If positivity rates go up too much, what are you going to send them all back home, possibly infected?
Comment by Frank talks Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 3:06 pm
Eighties ISU grad, I can vouch for Redbirds having a long and likely continuing tradition of huge yard/house/deck parties - often starting on Wed evening. In my day U of I had a better bar scene.
Comment by Donnie Elgin Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 3:10 pm
===Eighties ISU grad===
Same here. First weekend as a Freshman I went to a fraternity party that had 3000 people, $3 plastic cups, and live music. Good times.
Comment by 47th Ward Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 3:13 pm
I’m a sort-of student at UIS, taking advantage of their Senior Learners program. Being able to participate in their Covid-19 testing has turned out to be a nice unexpected perk. UIS has worked out an arraignment with UIUC to have the saliva-based testing, and they have (I think) daily drives of sample over to the labs at UIUC. I’ve had two tests (both negative) and the turnaround was 2 days for the first, and something like 20 hours on the second. The first test was from the 2-day shakedown period, and was delayed while the facilities over at UIUC were expanded. It will be mandatory weekly testing for students and employees. However, students (like me) who will not be on campus can sign up for intermittent walk-in testing, but those who are on campus or will be on campus each week sign up for scheduled time slots, something like two-hour slots, to help avoid long lines. I had no lines for either of my tests. The saliva test is undignified, but not unpleasant. If I recall correctly, in the first 4 days of testing they did 1200 tests (this was before students moved in) and had 10 on-campus positives plus 2 off-campus positives. I think they were planning to put up a dashboard, or at least more reporting, starting this week. I have not seen it yet, but there will be one of the weekly zoom presentation on the subject tomorrow at 1pm.
Comment by bhartbanjo Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 4:41 pm
There is a difference between UIUC and ISU, but the numbers are misleading.
Once you multiply the positivity rate by the number of tests administered, both campuses have hundreds of positive test results, and in fact UIUC has more.
Positivity rates are secondary indicators of infection, not primary measures.
We need to be careful about relying on positivity rates too heavily, because they are skewed by unequal access to testing, and can mask high infection rates in populations with relatively low access to testing.
You could have an explosive infection rate off-campus in Champaign-Urbana right now and you would not see it in the reported data.
Comment by Thomas Paine Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 5:13 pm
====Sure you’re not thinking of UIC?===
Agree - not many parties there: 1/2 the campus is health sciences and they are either studying nonstop (trust me) or taking care of patients. The other 1/2 are a lot of commuters - not much night life after classes, at least on campus.
Comment by Dr. Pepper Wednesday, Aug 26, 20 @ 6:09 pm