Dear Brown Community Members,

Below, please find our weekly update on Brown’s testing program for COVID-19, with additional information and context to complement the data shared via our public dashboard:

https://healthy.brown.edu/testing-tracing/dashboard

It remains critically important that members of the community who have not yet been vaccinated or uploaded their cards do so as soon as possible, especially to ensure normal operations for the fall semester. Detailed instructions are available on the Verify Your Vaccination page on the Healthy Brown website:

https://healthy.brown.edu/vaccinations/verify

Over the summer, we have been reporting vaccination rates for students, faculty and staff who are currently on campus, as well as for the total population. With the final day of summer term classes this week, and as we look forward to the return of employees who have been working remotely and to the beginning of the next academic year, we will begin now to report exclusively the vaccination rates for the total population of employees (faculty and staff) and the total population of students (undergraduate, graduate, medical).

The percentage of total employees (faculty and staff) who have uploaded their vaccination cards is 93.9% (up from 93.8% last week). The percentage of the total student population is 88.4% (up from 86.0% last week).

At Brown, since launching our routine testing program for the fall term on Aug. 24, we have conducted 445,478 asymptomatic tests to date. A total of 12,275 individuals have been tested in that timeframe, and the total number of positive test results is 575 (unchanged this week from a total of 575 last week) -- a prevalence rate of 4.7%.

Here are highlights of the testing program over the last seven days, Thursday, July 22, through Wednesday, July 28:

-- There have been 0 positive asymptomatic test results: 0 from employees and 0 from students. As a reminder, our student testing program includes undergraduate, graduate and medical students.

-- Over the past week, the employee asymptomatic positivity rate was 0.00%, and the student asymptomatic positivity rate was 0.00%. The Rhode Island positivity rate during this same time period was 2.39%.

-- The average turnaround time for asymptomatic test results during this period was approximately 14 hours.

-- University Health Services (UHS) conducted 49 symptomatic tests of students. Of these, none were positive for COVID-19. Exact results for symptomatic students who are tested by UHS are not reported (and do not appear on the public dashboard) to protect the confidentiality of the small numbers of students who are tested. We will report on ranges and any concerns regarding trends in these weekly summaries.

-- The University does not directly test symptomatic employees, as they receive health care from their individual providers. We do monitor employee absences due to COVID-19 -- which can be for a range of reasons, including care of a child or family member or quarantine due to a known exposure -- and the number of such absences for the most recent full work week was 0.

-- It is important to note that with regard to all positive cases, we have taken action consistent with our contact tracing protocols, COVID-19 Campus Safety Policy, isolation and quarantine procedures, and other measures outlined in Brown’s Plan for a Healthy and Safe 2020-21.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns. For questions or support regarding the testing program, students can contact the student testing support team (studenttesting@brown.edu), and faculty and staff can contact the employee testing support team (employeetestinguhr@brown.edu).

Sincerely,

Russell C. Carey
Executive Vice President, Planning and Policy