News Briefs 4/12

Mary Racette

GV COVID-19 campus data update

The GVSU community has had a cumulative total of 2,939 COVID-19 cases since Aug. 1. The university’s update for this brief was from Friday, April 9.

Through testing results this past week, GVSU’s Virus Action team have so far reported 187 current active cases including five members of faculty, eight staff members, 27 on-campus students, 100 “off-campus Ottawa” students, 44 “off-campus Kent” students and three “off-campus other” student with active COVID-19 cases.

“Current active cases” is the count of positive cases reported to the Virus Action Team over the past ten days.  This is an estimate of those currently in isolation, assuming a ten-day symptomatic period following the reporting of a positive test result. Actual periods of isolation are specific to the individual and determined by the county health department.

Testing and Incidence: GVSU’s own testing program has performed 76,923 tests overall since August 21, for a cumulative positivity rate of 1.33% from the latest update as of last week.

“GV Surveillance” includes the GV/Spectrum administered programs of randomized testing, regular testing of high-risk groups, and invited testing of individuals connected to potential clusters. A calendar is available. “GV Total” includes surveillance testing plus all symptomatic/exposure tests administered by Spectrum.

Intersection on GV’s Pew campus closes for construction

Beginning April 7, the intersection of Mount Vernon Avenue and Fulton Street will be closed for construction. This intersection is located on GVSU’s Pew Grand Rapids Campus and could effect GVSU student’s daily route.

A map of the detours can be found on GVSU’s website. The construction funded through the Strategic Capital Reserve Fund is working towards building a pedestrian campus. This $3.9 million project will include a green space accompanied by a pathway and a bike trail. Seat walls, art walls and raised planters are also going to be built to fill the green space.

The construction is scheduled to wrap up by August.

GV plans vaccine clinic for students 

The wait is coming to an end for GVSU students to a receive a vaccine by a University run clinic. Beginning April 16, GVSU will invite students to receive the vaccine on campus. The University will be receiving 1,700 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Individuals 18 and older are approved for this vaccine.

Community members with the most high-risk exposure will be the priority for the vaccine. The priority schedule includes dining student workers, resident assistants, laboratory student workers, on-campus residents and near campus and in-person students.