Hello Bobcat Community,
So thankful to be writing you all after the first week of in-person instruction on a positive note — this week we passed the 90% threshold of vaccination rate for our students! Not only that, I also want to acknowledge the many stories I heard this week of students upholding our standards, nudging their friends and setting the bar high for our public health. While the high vaccination rate is an extremely important milestone, our ongoing diligence in doing our part is critical to combat the Delta variant to promote the health of our campus.
We completed our move-in on campus last week and over two weekends tested 3,510 students of which 13 were identified as asymptomatic positive. This statistic is extremely low, at about 0.37% positivity, and we would not of had this valuable information without the adherence by our student residents and the dedicated staff who established a streamlined process.
We’ve begun our ongoing Asymptomatic Lot Quality program. When it is your turn, you will be contacted by the CRC with additional instructions on how to participate in the program, which will be critical in monitoring our campus positivity ongoing.
This past week also had some learning moments that were to be expected and I want to thank each individual that reached out to share their concerns and suggestions on areas to improve upon. One specific area that I’d like to share an update on is around COVID-19 symptoms.
Symptom screening is nuanced, and we will be making upgrades to our process ongoing. Each of us knows our bodies best and its important to discern chronic conditions from emergent health conditions. For instance, with harvest season beginning for almonds, I’m sure many will have itchy eyes and even a runny nose. If you have known allergies and are experiencing them, these are not considered COVID symptoms (and we hope your allergies subside quickly). Next week we will provide more detailed information about symptoms that classify as low risk versus higher risk and what to expect from physical absence from campus. Our health check app is likely to change to allow for more nuanced responses that will allow the CRC to best guide individuals to the appropriate next steps.
As our team continues to work on updating our response to COVID-19, I expect an updated COVID statistics dashboard to be launched next week. We are diligently working on documenting our operational contingencies to share more broadly and are working on finalizing processes for rapid testing of employees.
Finally, as we celebrate Labor Day this weekend (and all the hard work put in by each of us this year to navigate the pandemic), please remember that if gathering socially, outdoors is the safest place to congregate and how we behave has a direct impact on the health of our campus community. I have no doubt that each of us will do our part in keeping our thriving campus active and healthy.
Be Well.
Andrew Boyd
Chief Resilience Officer
