In case you missed it this week, Ohio State released numbers on its initial coronavirus testing as students arrived back on campus. And is normally the case with these things, there is some good news and some not good news.
First, the not as good news is the fact that there were indeed some positive tests, so yeah — the virus is still around. But who really didn’t know that? There’s some extremely good news as well though. Of the 7,719 members of the university community — including students, faculty, and staff — only 80 students and 12 faculty or staff have had positive results come back. The breakout on that is a 1.16 percent positivity rate for students, and 1.44 percent for the faculty and staff.
The testing was performed on students on campus from Aug. 14 to Aug. 22, and faculty and staff testing from Aug. 1 to Aug. 22.
That’s probably better than anyone imagined it would be, but that doesn’t mean that every one should let their guard down. As transmissible as this virus has shown to be historically, things could still bloom into an issue.
New OSU President Kristina Johnson reacted to the news with a message of transparency and compassion.
“Information is a powerful tool in stopping the spread of the virus, and we want you to have as much information as possible,” Johnson wrote. “I know you join me in offering our love and support to the members of our Buckeye family who have tested positive and are in isolation.”
Ohio State has published aggregate test results from our comprehensive #COVID19 testing program, along with a data dashboard that will be updated weekly. Details are available here: https://t.co/HP8amJXOpk pic.twitter.com/GT7XcJlHGO
— Ohio State (@OhioState) August 25, 2020
So now the question on some minds; how does this relate to athletics, and most specifically football? Well, it’s obviously more important that everyone on campus is remaining safe. However, serious concerns have been raised around the return of students on campus, their interaction with the student-athletes, and then a sudden spike in cases.
It has been one of the main reasons why the Big Ten, Pac-12, and others from outside the Power Five conferences have postponed the fall football season.
That’s not to say that infections won’t still rise to an alarming level because nobody really had a handle on this thing, but the fact that the rates are coming back this low initially is very, very encouraging.
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