During the course of the pandemic, there have been a fair share of COVID-19 cases at Stevens which have been documented. The graphs included in this article are solely based on data collected from the Stevens website as well as weekly emails sent out to the Stevens Community. Every student, staff, and faculty member on campus is required to receive a weekly test at a scheduled time of their choice. On-campus tests have been, and continue to be, conducted by Bergen New Bridge Medical Center (BNBMC) through the Rutgers’ RUCDR SARS-CoV-2 saliva testing method. The tests, if not covered by the individual’s health insurance, are paid for by Stevens.
Students, staff, and faculty also have the choice to take a COVID-19 test off-campus and send their results to administration. It is important to keep in mind that off-campus test results may be confirmed cases of students/staff/faculty who are not actively on campus nor have been for a while. Additionally, employees of on-campus vendors have not been included in the graphs since there have only been three total positive cases in that category.
For the first few weeks before and leading up to the Fall 2020 semester, COVID-19 cases were either non-existent or very low. The first few cases appeared the third week of the semester; the middle to end of the semester is when spikes were seen in cases, with a peak of 10 new cases confirmed the week of October 26 through November 1.
Results from tests taken off campus began to be reported the week of October 19; between that date and December 27 there were 19 confirmed cases of Stevens students and workers who were located on campus, compared to 36 individuals who tested positive but were not on campus to study or work.
Between December 28, 2020 and February 14, 2021, a total of 30 new on-campus-tested cases were reported. There was a recent spike of cases seen about two weeks before the time of this publication, with 12 new cases being recorded during the week of February 1st, 2021 through February 7th, 2021.
At the end of January there was a spike of new cases for those who study or work off campus — 69 to be exact, with 38 stemming from the week of January 25th, 2021 through January 31st, 2021 alone. Over the same time period there were 11 cases reported of off-campus-tested individuals who are actively on campus.
As a whole, Stevens has confirmed under 140 new cases of COVID-positive individuals since August 24, 2020 that study or work on campus. Between August 24, 2020 and January 31, 2021, during which a total of 88 positive cases were confirmed, Stevens only had a positivity rate of 0.397%. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, we will continue to see a downward trend in cases within the Stevens community both on and off campus.
All graphs courtesy of Sara Deuidicibus.
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