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As the College finishes the third week of the 12-week session, we continue to be pleased overall by how our community is responding to the pandemic. This is our seventh weekly update; you can always find our other weekly updates online.
COVID TESTING
This week we continued our random COVID-19 testing. On Tuesday, Oct. 6, 243 faculty, staff, and students were tested. In addition to random testing, we also had several community members who chose to be tested. We are pleased to share that 214 test results indicated zero positive cases. We are still awaiting results on 29 tests, but this is tremendous news. While we celebrate the second consecutive week of no positive tests from our random sampling, we did receive notice of a positive case that was tested off campus. That individual is doing well and we will continue to monitor their health and well-being.
- Here are our current COVID-19 statistics at the time of this email:
- We have had 20 identified positive cases since move-in day on Thursday, Aug. 13.
- We have had 10 positive cases since the beginning of classes on Wednesday, Aug. 19.
- We are currently managing one active positive case, who is quarantining off campus.
- We have 5 students who have been identified as close contacts to a positive case and are quarantining for a mandatory 14 days.
While these numbers are still low, we ask that our community remain vigilant and follow our protocols. We are still in the middle of a rapidly changing pandemic and we need to keep our guard up.
TESTING NEXT WEEK
We will have two testing clinics next week on Thursday, Oct. 15, and Friday, Oct. 16. Those who are selected for the random testing will be notified on Tuesday, Oct. 13. The testing will occur from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the gym area of Ragan Brown Field House. If you are not selected but would still like to be tested, there will be a link in the Wednesday and Thursday Guilford Buzz to sign up for a timeslot.
PLEASE REMEMBER TO UTILIZE THESE IMPORTANT RESOURCES, AS NEEDED
As we shared last week, the College continues to urge all members of the Guilford community to proactively protect against, monitor and report any potential virus symptoms they experience or observe in others. Here are the links to the forms we mentioned in our last communication.
- COVID-19 Self-Reporting Form
- Self-Reporting Form QR Code (Check your email for code.)
- COVID-19 Anonymous Reporting Form
Guilford College will take every effort to protect personally identifiable information shared in these documents and will not disclose your identity or the identity of anyone with a coronavirus diagnosis unless disclosure to safety and first aid personnel is required for emergency treatment or is otherwise required by law.
SLOWCOVIDNC APP
Lastly, we would like to again mention another tool that we recommend the campus community utilize to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. SlowCOVIDNC is the official COVID-19 Exposure Notification app for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), which launched Sept. 22, 2020. It leverages Bluetooth technology to let app users know if they may have been exposed to COVID-19, enabling them to quickly act to protect themselves and those in their community. SlowCOVIDNC allows users to be notified if they may have been in close contact with someone who has shared a positive COVID-19 test result through the app. Users can anonymously share a positive COVID19 test result to notify others of exposure and help slow the spread of COVID-19. You obtain this app by downloading the free SlowCOVIDNC Exposure Notification app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and enable Bluetooth and Exposure Notifications. Bluetooth must be on for the app to work.
We want to emphasize that the SlowCOVIDNC App is another tool, but we also want to reinforce our own contact tracing and mitigation efforts. We believe our contact tracing team is the most efficient way to quickly stop the spread of the virus once we are notified of a positive case. We would ask those that do download the app to please call the COVID-19 hotline if you have been notified that you have been in close contact with someone that has shared a positive case result.
Be on the lookout for our next weekly update to be sent Friday, Oct. 16. Remember that if you have any questions related to COVID-19 and efforts to mitigate the pandemic on campus, please call the COVID-19 Hotline at 336.316.2319. We are all in this together!
Sincerely,
Jermaine Thomas
Director of Public Safety
Health and Safety Task Force Chair