Campus Update – Matrix Scoring, Community Expectations

Despite improvements in testing compliance and vaccination rates on campus, additional progress is needed to decrease our risk. In addition, the community transmission rate in Pitt County and reduced hospital capacity keeps the University at a MODERATE risk level with no changes to community expectations. The CDC COVID Data Tracker continues to classify Pitt County as an area of Substantial community transmission and recommends that everyone should wear a mask in public, indoor settings.

Our on-campus risk remains low with an average of 1-2 new cases per day over the last three weeks. The campus positivity rate continues to stay well below 1%. The total campus community vaccination rate has reached 78% with employees achieving 85%.

Although there has been improvement over the last week, about 16% (169) of our unvaccinated students still failed to get tested within the prescribed timeframe. Students who failed to provide documentation of testing this semester were notified on Oct. 22 that their PirateID would be deactivated if they did not take action by 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 26. By Nov. 8, 595 of 745 deactivated accounts were in compliance and reinstated.

Pitt County community data continues to improve with reductions in new cases and hospitalizations. The positivity rate has declined to 4.8%, which is now within the acceptable risk level of less than 5%. Please continue to wear masks indoors, encourage friends and family to get vaccinated and complete the weekly testing as soon as possible after being notified.

Thank you for your continued effort and progress to reduce our COVID risk.

– Bill Koch, Associate Vice Chancellor, Campus Safety, Co-Chair, COVID Coordination Committee