The University maintains a positivity rate under 0.1 percent as the testing program proceeds, while Providence College reported an outbreak and greater Rhode Island remains at risk for an outbreak of its own.
The University is working to ensure the safety of students, faculty and staff as online classes march forward. One of the ways the University seeks to meet this goal is through consistent testing, with the hope of maintaining a low positivity rate.
All students are required to get tested once they arrive on campus, and afterwards, all students, faculty and staff are required to get tested once or twice a week depending on how much contact they have with others, according to the Healthy at Brown website.
In the past seven days, the University has completed 8,294 tests. Out of these tests, three have been confirmed positive, resulting in a positivity rate of under 0.1 percent.
The positive cases in the last week bring the total amount of positive cases since Aug. 24 to 16, for an overall positivity rate of 0.2 percent.
Five individuals working in University labs at 70 Ship Street tested positive for COVID-19 in the past four weeks, The Herald previously reported.
The University’s positivity rate remains lower than both Rhode Island’s positivity rate of 6.5 percent and Providence’s positivity rate of 5.9 percent. According to COVID Act Now, there is a risk of an outbreak in Rhode Island, meaning that "cases are either increasing at a rate likely to overwhelm hospitals and/or the state’s COVID preparedness is below international standards."
Nearby Providence College has reported 160 students testing positive for coronavirus. The school, which enrolls around 4,800 students, recently announced that there would be a switch to remote learning for the next two weeks.
Meanwhile, the University of Rhode Island has reported a total of 61 positive cases between Sept. 14 and 21, with a positive test rate of 3 percent.
In the Ivy League for the past seven days, Yale has reported a positivity rate of under 0.01 percent, Harvard has reported a positivity rate of 0.01 percent, Cornell has reported a positivity rate of 0.02 percent and Penn has reported a positivity rate of 1.12 percent. At press time, Columbia and Princeton have not updated their dashboards to reflect the past week, while Dartmouth does not release weekly cases.
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