University of Texas sees relatively low COVID-19 numbers early in the semester – Austin American-Statesman

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Since classes began, the University of Texas has reported thousands of COVID-19 tests and a relatively small number of positivecases in the campus community.

UT welcomed an estimated 50,000 students to campus for fall classes starting Aug. 25, along with staff and faculty members. The university is holding nearly all classes in-person or in a hybrid format this fall, and it has reopened buildings such as the residence halls at full capacity.

UT reported an estimated 179 total active COVID-19 cases among students, staff and faculty as of Thursday. However, the university has not announced further requirements for community members to get tested, so the actual total number of cases remains unclear.

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Art Markman, the head of the academic working group for COVID-19 planning, said officials will have a better sense of student behavior and how the semester is going to look after another week, but things are looking pretty good so far. He said the university has not received a lot of reports of large indoor gatherings or of COVID-19 spread related to classroom activities.

The number of cases on campus is actually on the low to medium end of what the modeling team predicted. And I think that's in part because we did get a number of students who might have brought COVID-19 to campus ... to stay home a few extra days, Markman said. But obviously, we're going to continue to monitor.

A report by UT's COVID-19 Modeling Consortium published in August before classes started estimated that there would be between 187 and 236 UT students infected with COVID-19 during the first week of the semester.

Campus officials have implemented a number of precautions for the fall semester, including requiring students to submit a negative COVID-19 test resultbefore returning to classand allowing faculty members to temporarily reduce classroom density. UT spokeswoman Eliska Padilla said all students moving into the residence halls submitted proof of a negative test, and nearly 40,000 students reported negative test results to the university.

UT also is encouraging community members to wear masksand isoffering incentives for people who upload proof of vaccination. Gov. Greg Abbott has prohibited agencies that receive public funding in Texas from instituting vaccine and mask requirements.

The university encourages all students in Austin who have not yet done so, to get tested through the UT Proactive Community Testing (PCT) Program. .... Just as we have seen throughout the pandemic, we expect our community will remain committed to good health and safety behaviors on our campus, Padilla said in a statement.

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UT publishes the number of daily positive COVID-19 cases, proactive community tests, clinical tests and positivity rate among students, staff and faculty on a campus dashboard.The dashboard also lists the estimated active cases, which includes cases for 10 days after the onset of symptomsor 10 days after the test date if details about symptom onset are not available.

During the week that classes began, the university reported more than 10,000 weekly proactive community COVID-19 tests among the UT community, with a positivity rate of about 0.5% for students and 0.3% for faculty and staff. Lastweek, as ofFriday, the combined positivity rate for PCT tests in the last seven dayswas about 0.7% among students, faculty and staff, with55 positive tests out of 8,220.

While reported cases have been somewhatlow for the past two weeks even with increased testing, some UT students and faculty members said theyre still anxious about being on campus. They also said theyre concerned about the potential for more COVID-19 spread as the semester continues.

Stephennie Mulder, a UT associate professor in art history, said shes only teaching one small in-person class a week, but she worries about going home and infecting her unvaccinated daughter. She said she believes if UT mandated weekly testing of all students, it would help provide more data about the spread of COVID-19 in the campus community.

I feel very helpless, Mulder said. I'm a little bit less concerned for my own safety, because I'm vaccinated. If I'm wearing an N95 mask while teaching and I'm able to keep a distance from my students, the chance that I would bring that home to my daughter is relatively low, but it's possible.

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UT senior Apoorva Chintala said its been overwhelming and stressful for her to jump back into the routine of being back on campus with crowds of people and attending in-person classes for the past week and a half. She said, for her, the next few weeks will be critical to figuring out what's going to happen with COVID-19 the rest of the semester.

I hope more people get tested so that we can quarantine people that have COVID and minimize the spread, but it's not nearly enough, Chintala said. It's not the only thing we should be doing on campus to help stop the spread, because at that point people have already been around and spread out by the time they find out they're contagious.

Markman said the anxiety in the UT community is understandable, and he encourages people to engage in safe behavior. He said UT believes it has laid out a set of procedures that will keep people safe, but if there is evidence that that's not the case, the university will make changes.

We're doing a lot of daily testing right now, ... but we're not going to get exact numbers, Markman said. Generally speaking, if there's widespread illness on campus, we would see a lot more people coming in to get the clinical tests because they're symptomatic, and wed be seeing a much higher positivity rate on those tests.

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University of Texas sees relatively low COVID-19 numbers early in the semester - Austin American-Statesman