UA Tops 1,000 New COVID-19 Cases Since Aug. 19

TUSCALOOSA, AL. — The University of Alabama System updated its COVID-19 dashboard on Friday, showing that more than 1,000 cases of the novel coronavirus have been identified on the Tuscaloosa campus.

Since Aug. 19, the university's testing shows 1,043 new cases identified among students, while nine cases were confirmed among faculty and staff over this time.

The system reported confirming 481 cases for the Tuscaloosa campus during the testing period of Aug. 25-27.

The latest total is nearly double the 531 cases reported by the university at the beginning of the week, which prompted the city of Tuscaloosa to implement further emergency measures to prevent the local spread of the virus.

Since the onset of the pandemic, the University of Alabama System reports 1,201 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed on the Tuscaloosa campus, with the largest portion being identified in the last two weeks.

UA also reported it was at 36.09% occupancy of isolation space, which comes after students were moved out of Burke West earlier this week to shore up additional rooms.

In terms of student-entry testing, 310 of the 29,938 tested positive and were not allowed to return to campus until testing negative. When looking at the university's 5,181 faculty, UA reported 71 tested positive during entry testing for the semester.

The news come as COVID-19 hospitalizations have seen a sustained drop across the three-hospital DCH Health System, which reported 55 inpatient cases as of Friday afternoon. That total is an improvement from 58 cases on Thursday and a far cry from when the hospital hit triple digits in July.

According to the latest numbers from the Alabama Department of Public Health, Tuscaloosa County topped 5,000 cases on Friday (5,024), while 641 are listed as probable. These totals do not count UA students testing positive unless their home county is Tuscaloosa.

The county's death toll currently sits at 87.

This article originally appeared on the Tuscaloosa Patch