GV COVID-19 campus data update

The Grand Valley State University community has had a cumulative total of 7,353 cases since Aug. 1, 2020. The university’s update for this brief was from Thursday, March 31.

Through testing results this past week, GVSU’s Virus Action team have so far reported 35 current active cases including two faculty members, two staff members, nine on-campus students, eight “off-campus Ottawa” students, 12 “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 10 days.  This is an estimate of those currently in isolation, assuming a 10-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 87% of students report being fully vaccinated, while approximately 93% of faculty and staff reports being fully vaccinated.

There are currently 2,214 students and 139 faculty/staff with approved vaccination exemptions.

Testing and Incidence: GVSU’s own testing program has performed 130,592 tests overall since Aug. 1, 2020, for a cumulative positivity rate of 0.91% from the latest update as of last week. A total of 769 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.

Robotics students awarded GV scholarships

Two high school seniors were recently awarded scholarships to Grand Valley State University at the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Robotics district competition by President Philomena Mantella. 

The three-day competition hosted nearly 40 teams from across the state and was the first in-person FIRST Robotics competition held at GVSU since 2019. 

Adam Kroese from East Grand Rapids High School and Jordan Gabrielse from South Christian High School have each been accepted to GVSU and were awarded $20,000 scholarships at the competition.

Both students have been active in FIRST throughout their time in middle and high school and have expressed interest in pursuing engineering during their time in college.