COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State University’s student positivity rate for COVID-19 shot up in the last 24 hours to 3.1 percent, the school said Thursday.
On the third day of classes, the university community received an email which stated “the numbers are trending in the wrong direction” after the school reported a relatively encouraging 1.16 percent positivity rate when it released coronavirus testing results for the first time on Tuesday via a new dashboard.
The sudden near tripling of the positivity rate suggests that on-campus learning may be in jeopardy.
“It’s not just the positivity rate that is of concern; it’s also the rate of transmission,” said President-elect Kristina Johnson. “If we want to continue to stay on campus, we have to prevent the spread of the virus.”
Nationally, more than 26,000 college students have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Tuesday.
The University of Dayton started its first week of classes online due to high case numbers. The university is currently reporting 380 active cases.
Ohio State has said it would like to keep its positivity rate well below 5.5 percent, which was Franklin County’s positivity rate. The university is closely monitoring other criteria in addition to the positivity rate.
The school said it would provide weekly updates to its COVID-19 dashboard. As of Thursday evening, the dashboard still showed the 1.16 percent positivity rate. The dashboard showed 80 students tested positive between Aug. 14 to 22, while 6,805 tested negative. These numbers will rise when the latest testing results are included.
The university has issued interim suspensions to hundreds of students for off-campus gatherings. Gov. Mike DeWine expressed concern this week toward Ohio college students’ behavior so far during the pandemic.
“They’re with friends, they’re in a social situation, sometimes they’re drinking, they let their guard down and don’t wear a mask, they don’t keep the social distance,” DeWine said Tuesday. “If you look at the outbreaks on college campuses, a lot of them have come from that type of party.”
Ohio State is conducting testing on a mass scale. All students in university housing, which is about 12,000 people, are tested weekly. On Thursday, the University announced it would expand its surveillance testing of asymptomatic students who live off-campus up to 8,000 tests each week.
Johnson encouraged Ohio State students to behave as if everyone is a carrier of the virus. She remained optimistic that students can behave responsibly and reverse the trend.
“If we are to continue in-person instruction and on-campus activities, including residential life, we all must double down on our efforts in every facet of our work and daily life on and off campus,” Johnson said.
