GV COVID-19 campus data update

The GVSU community has had a cumulative total of 3,714 cases since Aug. 1, 2020. The university’s update for this brief was from Friday, Sept. 24.

Through testing results this past week, GVSU’s Virus Action team have so far reported 107 current active cases including two faculty members, eight staff members, 15 on-campus students, 43 “off-campus Ottawa” students, 33 “off-campus Kent” students and six “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 96,005 tests overall since August 1, 2020, for a cumulative positivity rate of 1.38% from the latest update as of last week. A total of 1,693 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 70% of students report being fully vaccinated, while approximately 85% of faculty and staff reports being fully vaccinated.

GV signs second agreement with HBCU

Grand Valley State University signed an agreement with Saint Augustine’s University, a Historically Black College/University in South Carolina, to provide SAU students with opportunities to earn master’s degrees in advanced computing or engineering fields in as little as five years.

GVSU signed a similar agreement last April with Fort Valley State University in Georgia. GVSU’s goal is not to compete with HBCUs, but to provide students from SAU or similar universities with opportunities not offered elsewhere.

SAU students can enroll at Grand Valley beginning in the Fall 2022 semester. There are six FVSU students currently enrolled at GVSU, according to a GVNext article.