Yesterday, Notre Dame announced it would suspend in-person classes but keep students on campus, at least for the immediate term, as it deals with a significant coronavirus outbreak. As a nationally-known brand, one of the more aggressive universities in the country when it came to bringing students back, and one of the earlier universities to start its fall semester, there’s a good deal of attention being paid to this outbreak and to what happens next—or at least, there was yesterday.
Notre Dame has confirmed 147 positive cases among it’s roughly 8,500 students. The true number of cases is likely higher. 80 of the positive tests were reported yesterday alone, with 418 new test results announced out of the total 927 (not counting the screening testing required before students returned to campus in the first place). Notre Dame’s overall positive test rate is 15.9% so far. Its positive test rate in results announced yesterday was 19.1%. Those numbers are high—during the summer surge in cases, the daily national positive test rate peaked somewhere around 10%. It’s unclear, at least to me, how many test results are going to be announced today, and we have no way of knowing whether the positive test rate will increase or decrease, so it’s a guessing game when it comes to whether the current numbers on the outbreak are roughly accurate, or if the true total is going to end up being much, much higher.
It’s a sad and scary situation, and it’s hard to imagine the stress students and uncertainty students are under—especially freshmen already dealing with homesickness, students with other health concerns, students with family members with health concerns, students whose parents can’t afford immediate flights home, etc. It’s not just happening at Notre Dame, of course, but this is a significant outbreak—and it’s especially significant to those dealing with it. We’ll see where it goes.
bet this post feels silly now, eh?
Oh no. You got me. It turned out well! How dare it.