UA: New Student Virus Cases Climb From Last Week, But Remain Low
TUSCALOOSA, AL. — New COVID-19 cases identified among University of Alabama students remain in double digits, but saw an increase from the previous week for the first time in more than a month.
According to Friday's update of the UA System's COVID-19 Dashboard, 45 new coronavirus cases were confirmed from Oct. 2-8, which is nearly twice the number — 24 — confirmed over the previous week. Additionally, 10 new cases were identified among UA faculty and staff during the last week.
The slight rise in cases marks the first time since the end of August that the number of cases did not decrease from the previous week of testing.
The cumulative total for student cases on the Tuscaloosa campus now sits at 2,578, while the total number of faculty testing positive since the onset of the pandemic is at 261.
UA reports that, systemwide, fewer than 100 new COVID cases were confirmed this week among the 70,400 students on the three UA System campuses.
The system also says five students are currently in isolation housing on the Tuscaloosa campus.
On the testing front, more than 1,100 faculty, staff and students, including clinical enterprise staff in the UAB Health System, received sentinel testing this week, with only eight testing positive.
While not including the number of student cases, the Alabama Department of Public Health on Friday reported a total of 6,714 confirmed COVID-19 cases across the county — 864 of which were identified over the last two weeks.
This article originally appeared on the Tuscaloosa Patch
