Nineteen Santa Fe College faculty, staff and students tested positive for COVID-19 between Feb. 2 and Monday.
The college’s total number of reported positive cases now totals to 664, according to a report provided by Santa Fe’s Director of Human Resources Lela Frye. Santa Fe recorded its first student COVID-19 case March 8 and its first employee case the following day, Frye wrote in an email.
Based on a timeline evaluated by Santa Fe’s contact tracing, five students and one employee may have been positive for the virus while on campus, according to the report. However, the team found this did not lead to further exposures.
Santa Fe does not require students to be routinely tested, and its case numbers are all self-reported, Frye said. If someone is exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms or sickness, they’re treated as a presumptive positive case and made to isolate whether they are tested or not, she said.
Based on the numbers provided in the report, 27.54% of students and faculty who reported feeling sick this week tested positive for COVID-19. This rate was calculated using the total number of opened cases, which includes people who reported feeling sick to the college regardless of whether they were tested, and the total number of reported positive cases.
Since March, 31.6% of those who reported feeling sick to the college tested positive for COVID-19.
Contact Juliana Ferrie at jferrie@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @juliana_f616.
Juliana Ferrie is a second-year UF journalism student. She is excited to be working for The Alligator as the Santa Fe Beat reporter. In her free time, you can find her reading or listening to music.
