With two weeks until Thanksgiving, a long winter ahead and new restrictions on the University of Illinois campus, officials are hoping people don’t develop pandemic fatigue.
Unlike humans, “the virus doesn’t get tired,” said Marty Burke, the chemistry professor leading the UI’s testing effort. “We all have to recommit ourselves to staying very safe.”
With an increase in COVID-19 cases on campus, the UI is encouraging students and employees to limit their activities and increasing how often grad students, faculty and staff have to get tested.
An average of more than 50 cases are being detected each day on campus, up from about 10 a day in mid-October.
The seven-day test-positivity rate is now higher for faculty and staff than it is for undergraduates, Chancellor Robert Jones wrote this week in a mass email.
Jones said the virus is spreading from the community to the UI, not from the UI to the community.
“This is driven by the dramatic increase in the cases in East Central Illinois during this time period. From contact tracing, we can determine that this is not due to classroom or on-the-job transmission,” Jones said. “The spread is likely to be through your household or social contacts.”
Burke also said his team looked at what the UI’s rising caseload correlates with.
“When we do that, the only thing we see correlation with is the rising case numbers in the surrounding community,” Burke said.
The positivity rate is higher among faculty and staff, Burke said, because they tend to have more exposure to the community.
And, he said, “we’ve gotten a really good level of compliance from undergraduates overall.”
While Burke said there remain some issues, “in terms of complaints, we don’t have a rise in complaints.”