USC reports decline in active COVID-19 cases amid limited testing capacity
The University of South Carolina released its latest update of coronavirus cases on campus Friday, with another decline in active cases.
As of Thursday, there are 501 active cases, a decrease since the numbers were last updated Tuesday, when USC had 654. Of those, 491 are students and 10 are faculty or staff.
Since Aug. 1, there have been 2,074 cases reported among students, representing 5.7% of the student population.
But while the number of active cases has steadily declined over the past week, USC’s testing numbers have also dropped off during that time, as USC was forced to pause saliva testing after a “key lab staffer” became ill. That testing resumed Tuesday, but at a limited capacity.
USC still conducted nasal swab tests for symptomatic students and staff members during that pause, but the on-demand saliva testing was touted as one of the university’s key weapons in fighting the spread of the virus. It was developed in part by the school’s College of Pharmacy and allowed for more than 1,000 saliva tests per day, with results back in less than a day.
Starting Tuesday, USC was only able to process roughly 200 tests because the school is still understaffed in its testing lab. It is borrowing staff from Nephron Pharmaceuticals and the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Over the past week, South Carolina has conducted 1,632 tests with, more than 10% of those tests returning positive. From last Friday to Monday, the school reported just 503 total tests. From Tuesday to Thursday, that number jumped to 1,129.
USC’s dedicated spaces for students to be quarantined and isolated are 40.2% full, according to USC’s online dashboard, a decline from a high of 66%.
Even as case numbers have decreased, USC President Robert Caslen has warned of an increase in cases following Labor Day weekend. As a precautionary measure, the school has also rented 132 hotel rooms at Springhill Suites to quarantine students.
The campus alert level is still listed as “low,” and registered at 0.73 on a scale from 0 to 3 on Friday.
This story was originally published September 11, 2020 at 5:22 PM.