Stanford reported 169 new COVID-19 cases among students and 230 new cases among faculty, staff and postdoctoral scholars for the week of May 16, according to the COVID-19 dashboard.
Case counts rose by 1% among students and 22% among employees compared to the prior week. According to the dashboard, 218 students are in isolation as of Monday, which is an increase from the 208 students reported last week.
“We continue to see fluctuations from week to week, and regional and national numbers make clear that COVID-19 remains with us,” University spokesperson E.J. Miranda wrote in a statement to The Daily. “We continue to strongly recommend masking and other precautions, as the University encouraged in last week’s message.”
Stanford provides students with Color COVID-19 tests and requires biweekly tests for unvaccinated students. While vaccinated students are no longer required to test through Stanford’s surveillance system as of April 11, the University emphasized that vaccination, testing and masking can prevent serious illness, according to the dashboard.
The University’s seven-day positivity rate rose from 7.43% last week to 8.01% this week for students and from 2.06% to 2.42% for employees. The number of tests administered to students fell from 2,247 the prior week to 2,109 this week, according to the dashboard. The seven-day positivity rate for students is slightly less than Santa Clara County’s 8.2% rate and above California’s 6% rate.
Peer institutions are experiencing mixed changes in student positivity rates. Harvard reported a decrease to a 2.35% positivity rate, and the University of California, Berkeley reported an increase to a 10.7% positivity rate. Stanford’s 8.01% positivity rate remains above that of Harvard and below that of UC Berkeley.
Of the 230 new employee cases, 94 are included in the University’s testing count. 136 individuals tested outside the University’s surveillance testing system through rapid antigen tests or tested positive earlier than last week but just reported it to the University, according to the dashboard.
A total of 3,917 students and 2,299 faculty, staff and postdocs have tested positive through Stanford’s surveillance testing system since June 29, 2020, according to the dashboard.