UTEP unveiled its COVID Data Dashboard weeks into the fall semester and it’s now reflecting the highest number of UTEP-affiliated COVID-19 cases for one week.
The dashboard reveals that 19 people tested positive for the virus and 6 people reported their positive status to the university between Sept. 28 and Oct. 4 — still low compared to the city’s number of daily positive cases which was 218 for Monday, Oct. 5.
However, the number of positive cases through UTEP’s testing program has been on an upward trajectory since the week of Sept. 7 and Sept. 13 when only five people tested positive through UTEP.
After that week it increased to eight, then 13 and now the program has identified 19 positive cases.
The Prospector requested from UTEP a breakdown of the number of total positive cases affiliated with the university and the university’s response reveals that one employee and five students living in UTEP housing tested positive for the virus from Aug. 24 to Oct. 2.
The university did not disclose the number of cases broken down by gender.
In total, there have been 90 UTEP-affiliated positive cases of COVID-19 since Aug. 24, both self-reported and through UTEP’s testing program, the dashboard shows.
Despite this slight upward trend, a university-wide email from UTEP President Heather Wilson sent Monday said that the university’s safety measures “seem to be working.”
“In the last few weeks, the number of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in El Paso have begun to rise again after an extended period of steady decreases,” Wilson said in the email. “On the UTEP campus, the situation is a little different. Our strategies to suppress the disease seem to be working.”
New Mexico State University (NMSU) has recorded a total of 127 university-affiliated positive COVID-19 cases as of Oct. 4, its dashboard reveals, however those numbers go back to late March.
In comparison, UTEP’s COVID-19 numbers only go back to Aug. 24 and 90 cases have already been reported since then.
Prospector Staff may be reached at [email protected]; @UTEP_Prospector on Twitter.
