After reporting a more than 100% increase in the campus’ COVID-19 positivity rate for the week of Oct. 19-25, the number of new cases and positivity rate on the UNI campus have both once again risen in the past week.

As depicted in the accompanying graphic, from Oct. 26-Nov. 1, the UNI Student Health Center reported a 26.96% positivity rate, with 31 new positive cases through Student Health Center testing.

The positivity rate may decrease slightly today when the Student Health Center updates last week’s data to include any tests conducted on Friday. Since the end-of-week updates only include data collected through Thursday, Friday numbers are added to the weekly total by noon on the following Monday and are therefore not included in the NI’s weekly analysis.

Last week at press time, the Student Health Center had reported a 24.27% positivity rate for Oct. 19-25. When Friday’s numbers were added on Oct. 26, however, that rate dropped to 23.08%.

Even with that slight shift, last week’s numbers still represented a substantial increase from the 13 new cases and 9.77% reported the week before. While this week’s numbers do not indicate such a drastic increase, the upward trend is noticeable after over a month of consistently low campus rates.

In response, the UNI administration is appealing to the campus community to continue to follow public health regulations and get tested if necessary, according to an emailed statement from UNI public relations manager Steve Schmadeke.

“The university continues to monitor the increase in COVID-19 case numbers across the county, state and nation.  We know this is a community-wide problem and that our campus is not immune to this increase,” he wrote. “While the campus community has done a tremendous job getting through the semester to date, we encourage students staff and faculty to be especially vigilant in the coming weeks, including after the semester ends.”