GV COVID-19 campus data update

The Grand Valley State University community has had a cumulative total of 6,851 cases since Aug. 1, 2020. The university’s update for this brief was from Friday, Jan. 28.

Through testing results this past week, GVSU’s Virus Action team have so far reported 683 current active cases including 37 faculty members, 48 staff members, 137 on-campus students, 274 “off-campus Ottawa” students, 151 “off-campus Kent” students and 36 “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 10 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.

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, barring a medical or religious exemption or postponement. According to the COVID-19 data dashboard, an 80% vaccination rate in the GVSU community is required to reach herd immunity and minimal virus transmission.

Currently, approximately 82% of students report being fully vaccinated, while approximately 93% of faculty and staff reports being fully vaccinated.

There are currently 2,177 students and 129 faculty/staff with approved vaccination exemptions.

Testing and Incidence: GVSU’s own testing program has performed 122,342 tests overall since Aug. 1, 2020, for a cumulative positivity rate of 2.12% from the latest update as of last week. A total of 1,859 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.

Supreme Court declines to hear case of murdered GV student

The United States Supreme Court will not hear the appeal of the family of the murdered Grand Valley State University student, 21-year-old Rosemarie Reilly. 

Reilly’s family had wanted county and university police officers to be held legally responsible for alleged negligence and failed prevention of her death. 

In the lawsuit, Reilly’s family claimed the police went easy on Rosemarie’s killer, her ex boyfriend Jeremy Kelley, because his father was a police officer. They claimed that this “emboldened” Kelley to murder Reilly and kill himself.

The high court reviewed the petition and issued an order declining to consider the case on Jan. 24.