GV COVID-19 campus data update

The GVSU community has had a cumulative total of 2,542 COVID-19 cases since Aug. 1. The university’s update for this brief was from Friday, March 5.  

Through testing results this past week, GVSU’s Virus Action team have so far reported 32 current active cases including 2 staff members, 11 on-campus students, 13 “off-campus Ottawa” students, 5 “off-campus Kent” students and 1 “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 58,754 tests overall since August 21, for a cumulative positivity rate of 1.40% 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.

President Mantella discusses education, pandemic with fellow panelists 

A panel including GVSU’s President Philomena V. Mantella met virtually Friday, March 5 to discuss how K-12 and higher education has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mantella was joined by Bill Pink, president of Grand Rapids Community College, Sheila A. Allies, chief deputy superintendent for the State of Michigan and Elizabeth Hertel, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. 

The “COVID-19 and Education: Challenges and Adaptations” wrapped up the Health Forum of West Michigan’s events for the semester. 

Vaccine offered to ineligible GV students 

The GVSU community received an email on March 3 announcing that a limited amount of COVID-19 vaccines were available.

The email sent out by the GVSU Virus Action Team said these doses were now available because of no-shows and cancellations. Students, faculty and staff were directed to call to schedule an appointment if they were interested in this opportunity. 

However, the next day the Virus Action Team sent out an email saying that the opportunity was only supposed to be offered to students and faculty in clinical roles. The email apologized for the miscommunication and cancelled any appointments that were scheduled by anyone not eligible for the vaccine.

Some students and faculty were still able to take advantage of this opportunity and got vaccinated before appointments were cancelled.

Mini-grant opportunity awarded to first year and transfer students

The mySuccessCheck survey was sent out to all GVSU first year and transfer students. Students who completed this survey were automatically entered to win a $500 mini-grant. MySuccessCheck is intended to provide an opportunity to check in with students new to the University. 

The winner of this year’s mySuccessCheck mini-grant is transfer student Patrice Scott. Scott is a GVSU Film and Video Production student from Ypsilanti, Michigan.