Each week, The Temple News will provide a brief breakdown on COVID-19 trends and cases at Temple University.
Case counts include students registered at any of Temple’s Philadelphia-area campuses, according to the university’s case dashboard.
Here’s what happened this week:
What happened with Temple cases today?
Temple reported 48 active cases of COVID-19 on campus, including 43 among students and five among employees, on Nov. 2, according to the dashboard.
Active cases have gradually declined after reaching 90 on Oct. 26.
How did cases change last week?
The university recorded 35 new COVID-19 cases during the week of Oct. 26, a decrease from 71 cases the week prior, according to the dashboard.
Temple tested more than 1,000 people for the fifth week in a row, according to the dashboard.
The university recorded a 2.72 percent positivity rate among those tested this week, its lowest positivity rate since the week of Aug. 17. Temple recorded a 5.24 percent positivity rate the week of Oct. 19, according to the dashboard.
“We have not identified any reason for the change in cases two weeks ago, and now we’re back where we’ve been for the last six or seven weeks,” said Mark Denys, director of Student Health Services. “I think this is part of the rollercoaster ride that COVID-19 is giving us.”
The overall positivity rate among those tested at Temple since March 10 is 4.24 percent, according to the dashboard.
What happened with cases in Philadelphia?
Philadelphia recorded 194 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, down from 417 on Oct. 23.
The city averaged 310 new cases per day from Oct. 16 to Oct. 30, according to city data.
The city averaged 263 new cases per day from Oct. 9 to Oct. 23, according to city data.
“The Health Department is closely monitoring the situation and is considering new restrictions intended to slow the spread of COVID-19, but nothing concrete has been decided,” James Garrow, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, wrote in an email to The Temple News.
Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley announced that people should cancel their Thanksgiving and holiday plans, because the city’s contact tracing program is finding that small gatherings of friends and family are how most people are infected with COVID-19, Garrow wrote.
The ZIP codes 19121 and 19122, which encompass Main Campus, have recorded 2,048 positive cases of COVID-19 and 50 deaths combined since March, according to city data.
Philadelphia has recorded 45,451 confirmed cases and 1,878 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.
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