Covid-19 outbreaks at US Universities (no longer updated)
Below is my attempt to list all US Universities/colleges that had more than 100 new confirmed cases among its students/employees within a week. As of 30/8, the list has 25 entries.
| University | Date added | Student population | Cases | Actions? (incomplete!) | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U of Alabama | 26/8 | 38000 | 500? | Bars shut down | # cases; al.com. |
| U of North Carolina Chapel Hill | 26/8 | 30,000 | 505 | all UG teaching moved online; asked most students to move home | # cases, CNN, UNC August updates. |
| Georgia C | 26/8 | 6900 | 318 | # cases | |
| U Missouri at Columbia | 26/8 | 30000 | 168 | bars close early | #cases |
| Auburn U | 26/8 | 27000 | 207 | #cases | |
| U of Tennesse-Knoxville | 26/8 | 23000 | 105? | wate.com | |
| U of Notre Dame | 26/8 | 9600 | 301 | all teaching moved online | #cases |
| U of Iowa | 26/8 | 33000 | 107[1] | Bars closed | # cases kimt.com |
| Iowa State U | 26/8 | 33000 | 130 | Bars closed | #cases |
| Texas A & M | 26/8 | 70,000 | 336 | #cases | |
| East Carolina U | 26/8 | 29000 | 262 | all teaching moved online | #cases |
| Georgia Tech | 26/8 | 36000 | 116 | #cases | |
| NC State | 26/8 | 35000 | 216 | all UG teaching moved online; students asked to move off campus | #cases ncsu.edu |
| Missouri State | 27/8 | 23000 | 141 | #cases | |
| Texas Christian U | 27/8 | 11000 | 146 | #cases | |
| Baylor U | 27/8 | 18000 | 171 | #cases | |
| Illinois State | 27/8 | 19300 | 317 | indoor gatherings limited, be seated to be served in bars | #cases |
| Missisippi State | 27/8 | 22000 | 112 | #cases | |
| Miami U of Ohio | 27/8 | 19000 | 115 | #cases | |
| U of South Carolina Columbia | 27/8 | 35000 | 188 | #cases | |
| U of Miami | 27/8 | 18000 | 190 | #cases | |
| Oklahoma State | 27/8 | 24000 | 153 | #cases | |
| U of Kansas | 30/8 | 28000 | ?[2] | ||
| U of Kentucky | 30/8 | 30000 | ?[3] | ||
| U of Nebraska Lincoln | 30/8 | 26000 | 142 | #cases | |
| Ohio State | 30/8 | 61000 | 400 | #cases | |
| U of Georgia | 31/8 | 39000 | 173[4] | #cases | |
| UIUC | 1/9 | 51000 | 450[5] | #cases | |
| Kansas State U | 1/9 | 22000 | 213 | #cases | |
| Bloomsburg U | 1/9 | 8700 | 118 | #cases | |
| U of South Dakota | 1/9 | 11500 | 180+ | #cases | |
| Georgia Southern U | 1/9 | 26000 | 508 | #cases | |
| IU Bloomington | 1/9 | 43500 | >300? | #cases | |
| James Madison U | 1/9 | 22600 | 497 | Teaching moved online, students asked to move off campus | #cases |
| Virginia Tech | 2/9 | 36000 | 157 | #cases | |
| UW Madison | 3/9 | 45000 | 138 | #cases | |
| U of Louisville | 3/9 | 22700 | 105 | #cases | |
| Lousiana State | 3/9 | 32000 | 319 | #cases | |
| U of Dayton | 3/9 | 11500 | 658 | #cases | |
| Washington State U | 3/9 | 31600 | ?[6] | student newspaper | |
| Adrian College | 3/9 | 2200 | 150? | freep.com |
Cases is number of new confirmed cases among students/employees in the last week at the time I added this entry to the table; where possible, I exclude results from arrival testing. Student population is approximate total (UG/PG) enrollment in a recent year (pre-covid). All numbers approximate. Where such breakouts exist, almost all the positive cases are students.
For comparison, the US overall currently (August 25) has an incidence of 91 new confirmed cases/100000 residents per week, i.e. about 30/week would be normal for a large (30,000) University. Scotland has an incidence of 9.1/100000 per week. Most states in Germany have guidelines implementing automatic local restrictions at an incidence of more than 50/100000 per week.
Honourable mentions: Some Universities have not (yet?) made the above listed, but reacted before reaching our threshold, e.g. by moving teaching online (SUNY Oneonta) or giving all students a week to move off-campus (CSU Chico) or suspending in-person teaching (Temple University). Inside Higher Ed has a list of 180 Universities that have at least partially reversed their reopening plans since beginning of July.
Who made this?
I did. Comments/corrections/additions welcome: arend.bayer@ed.ac.uk.
Footnotes
[1] Self-reported cases.
[2] University of Kansas reported 470 cases, but that includes entry-testing; given 270 cases among fraternities/sororities, with a positivity rate of 10%, it seems highly probable that most of these are new infections.
[3] The local health department tweeted: We are continuing to see a rise in cases among University of Kentucky students, with 654 total cases. This includes testing from multiple sources and not just the specialized on-campus testing done by the university. But I haven't found daily/weekly figures. As of today, 30/8, the University's own figures are 8 days out of date.
[4] Figures were 10 days old the day I accessed them (31/8). The student newspaper regularly looks at more up-to-date figures from the local county.
[5] This is based on testing all students and staff twice a week. How does this compare to Universities only testing symptomatic students? Impossible to say. Testing in England, mostly based on testing symptomatic residents, currently seems to catch roughly a third of all infections (based on comparing official case counts with the estimates by the ONS infection survey pilot). In the age group of 20-25 year olds, asymptomatic infections seem to be more common.
[6] Sharp increase in positive cases in Whitman County; 350 cases since August 24, of which 90% are 20-25 year old.