Update: Cal Poly reports more than 2,000 COVID-19 cases. Here’s what you need to know
Cal Poly brought thousands of students to campus in September to live in residence halls and take in-person classes, the most out of any California State University.
COVID-19 cases among students grew steadily until numbers spiked during an outbreak beginning the first week of November. The San Luis Obispo university saw its case numbers more than triple since Halloween, an increase from 259 to 855 by Nov. 30.
Cal Poly coronavirus cases spiked again early in the university’s winter term, which began on Jan. 4. Just in the month of January, the university reported 463 COVID-19 cases among students.
By February, the university had seen a decrease in COVID-19 transmission among students — reporting just 188 total cases throughout the month.
The university saw similar case numbers in March, reporting 195 COVID-19 cases total throughout the month.
In April, the university reported almost the same number of COVID-19 cases among students as both the months of February and March combined. In total, Cal Poly reported 372 cases.
As of May 24, the university had reported a total of 2,025 COVID-19 cases among students and employees. The university has also performed more than 230,000 tests for COVID-19 since March 2020.
About 4,500 Cal Poly students are living in on-campus residences, and 4,000 are enrolled to take in-person courses at the university during the spring quarter which began on March 29.
Much is still unknown about Cal Poly’s COVID-19 case numbers — such as how many students tested positive at San Luis Obispo County testing sites, or how many university employees have tested positive.
Cal Poly originally conducted COVID-19 tests for symptomatic students via its Campus Health & Wellbeing lab. An outside contractor, Avellino Lab USA, was brought in to conduct surveillance testing of asymptomatic students.
The university only required students to get tested three times over the fall quarter through its original testing program, meaning that students could have unknowingly spread the virus after contracting it during a week in which they were not required to get tested.
During the winter and most of the spring quarter, Cal Poly stepped up its COVID-19 testing measures and required students who were going to campus for any reason or in contact with anyone who goes to campus to get tested twice a week via Avellino Lab.
Cal Poly dropped its contract with Avellino Lab on Feb. 25 and implemented its faculty-built saliva and wastewater COVID-19 testing program.
On May 13, the university decreased its COVID-19 testing requirements for students from twice a week, to once a week.
This change was made “with support from San Luis Obispo County Public Health and from our community and campus experts,” according to the university.
Students who tested positive for the virus through Avellino Lab were kept in a separate category and Cal Poly did not document whether those students lived on campus or off campus. Therefore, the total number of students who tested positive for COVID-19 living on campus or off campus was not entirely clear.
In total, that accounted for 455 individuals.
Since dropping its contract with Avellino, Cal Poly has broken the positive case numbers into just two categories: on-campus students and off-campus students, and dropped the third, “ongoing testing program” category.
As of May 24, 777 on-campus students and 1,240 off-campus students have tested positive for COVID-19 since July 10.
Cal Poly does not publish how many employees have tested positive for the virus, even though employees often go to campus to teach in-person classes, clean facilities, cook food or provide sanitation services for the university’s COVID-19 isolation residences.
The Tribune is aware of eight employees who have reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 since March 2020.
Below is The Tribune’s COVID-19 dashboard for Cal Poly, which will be updated daily and modified when additional data are released by the university and the San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department.
The dashboard tracks the number of COVID-19-positive students since Sept. 15 — the day after classes began — and the number of tests performed by the university and its former partner, Avellino Lab USA, as well as how the university’s COVID-19 test positivity rate and daily reported positive tests compares to that of the city of San Luis Obispo.
The database also looks at how many COVID-19 vaccines have been administered at Cal Poly.
Last updated: May 24 at 12:37 p.m.
To view the line chart showing how many total COVID-19 cases have been reported at Cal Poly, click here.
To view the graph showing the daily COVID-19 positive students on and off campus, click here.
To view the line chart showing how many total COVID-19 tests have been performed at Cal Poly, click here.
To view the number of Cal Poly students in quarantine or isolation, click here.
To see what the 7-day average number of COVID-19 cases reported from Cal Poly compared to those from SLO County are, click here.
To view the graph showing Cal Poly and SLO County test positivity rates, click here.
To see how many COVID-19 tests Cal Poly performed each week compared to its weekly goals, click here.
If you can’t see this bar graph depicting how many COVID-19 vaccines have been administered at Cal Poly, click here.
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 9:23 AM.
