UGA sees jump in COVID-19 cases after the first week of classes in 2022

The University of Georgia had its second-highest week for newly reported COVID-19 cases, with nearly 1,000 cases reported for the first week of school.

UGA officials update its COVID-19 Health and Exposure Updates page, which has data spanning as far back as August 2020, each week.

UGA’s spring semester began on Jan. 10 and for the week of Jan. 10-16, there were 992 cases reported. This makes it the second-highest week for reported COVID-19 cases out of all the data available from UGA. 

The highest number of cases in one week was 1,490 cases, which was reported in September 2020. 

More:Athens pharmacy among Georgia sites receiving allocation of oral antiviral COVID-19 treatment

More:Four Athens schools moving to virtual learning amid staff shortages from COVID-19

The number of positive tests is based on the day that an individual was tested, according to the update dashboard. Faculty, staff, and students are required to report any positive COVID-19 test, with there being approximately 50,000 people who are required to report a positive test.  

The 992 cases is also an increase from the previous week’s data, which—when it was first reported—had 804 cases for the week of Jan. 3 to Jan. 9.  However, that number has since increased with Wednesday’s update, with 852 cases now being reported for that week. 

UGA also provides a breakdown of how these test results were gathered, with 35% of the positive tests this week coming from surveillance testing. 

Surveillance testing is a voluntary process of testing asymptomatic people on campus to find positive cases among those who do not have symptoms but could still be spreading the virus. 

The positivity rate among the surveillance tests was 15% — an increase from last week’s rate of 13%. The positive case count is further broken down by status: student, staff, and faculty. 

When looking at these three areas, students have the largest positivity rate among surveillance testing at 17%. The staff positivity rate was 9% and the faculty rate was 10%.

These positivity rates, however, do not include tests taken at the University Health Center, in the local Athens community or those self-reported. UGA only provides detailed data for surveillance testing. 

The Georgia Department of Public Health provides additional COVID-19 information for the whole Athens community, which shows an increase in community cases over the past several weeks. 

Clarke County recently saw its highest number of newly reported COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began, with the current single-day peak being Jan. 6 with 331 cases reported for that day.  In the last two weeks, more than 3,000 positive cases have been reported in Clarke County, equating to a positivity rate of 2,437 cases per 100K residents.