GV COVID-19 campus data update

The GVSU community has had a cumulative total of 3,504 cases since Aug. 1, 2020. The university’s update for this brief was from Saturday, Sept. 4.

Through testing results this past week, GVSU’s Virus Action team have so far reported 96 current active cases including eight faculty members, eight staff members, six on-campus students, 44 “off-campus Ottawa” students, 28 “off-campus Kent” students and two “off-campus other” students 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 91,007 tests overall since August 1, 2020, for a cumulative positivity rate of 1.36% from the latest update as of last week. A total of 945 tests were performed over the last seven days.

“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.

Vaccination: GVSU encourages all students, faculty and staff to receive the COVID-19 vaccination as soon as possible. All students, faculty and staff are required to be fully vaccinated by Sept.30, barring a medical or religious exemption or postponement. According to the COVID-19 data dashboard, 80% vaccination rate in the GVSU community is required to reach herd immunity and minimal virus transmission.

Currently, approximately 57% of students report being fully vaccinated, while approximately 84% of faculty and staff reports being fully vaccinated.

GV named top Michigan employer by Forbes

GVSU is ranked at 25 in the Forbes “America’s Best Employers by State.” The ranking includes 75 Michigan companies with 500 or more employees. Survey respondents were asked to rate their employers on a variety of criteria, including the safety of work environment, the competitiveness of compensation, opportunities for advancement, openness to telecommuting and how likely they would be to recommend their workplace to others. GVSU was ranked as Michigan’s number one workplace in 2020, and number two in 2019.