USC downgrades COVID-19 threat on campus to ‘new normal’ as cases decline

The University of South Carolina has updated its count of coronavirus cases on campus.

As of Friday, USC is reporting 170 active cases on campus. The majority of those, 164, are students, according to USC’s online dashboard.

USC also has a larger percentage of its quarantine space available, 86.6%, compared to Tuesday when USC last released COVID-19 data.

Between Tuesday and Thursday, USC conducted 1,468 coronavirus tests, with 5% of those being positive, according to the dashboard.

The campus alert level, a composite score of case numbers, testing and quarantine capacity, coronavirus’ impact on day-to-day operations and more, describes the coronavirus risk on USC’s campus as “new normal,” the least severe rating the system has.

Since school began Aug. 20, the peak number of reported active cases has been 1,461 on Sept. 3, according to USC’s online dashboard.

Around the time the peak was reported, testing declined rapidly because USC said a lab staffer key to saliva testing became sick, which caused saliva testing to fall to one-sixth of its previous capacity.

Naturally, fewer tests showed fewer positives, but the percent positive rates were also down shortly after the spike.

USC President Robert Caslen has promised to expand testing and to test every student before Thanksgiving break, he said in a town hall this week. Starting Saturday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will be providing coronavirus testing at USC’s baseball stadium and at Martin Luther King Park near Five Points.

While cases rose early in the semester, USC officials remained publicly confident in the school’s ability to test, quarantine and do contact tracing.

One of the lingering problems — both at USC and throughout South Carolina — has been that men are less likely to take coronavirus tests than women.

Throughout the school year so far, videos and photos have surfaced showing large crowds of people gathered in student apartment complexes or off-campus areas popular with students. Caslen has said classrooms and on-campus buildings are safe, but off-campus gatherings are spreading coronavirus.

Caslen has attributed the decrease in cases to more responsible student behavior.

This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 5:15 PM with the headline "USC downgrades COVID-19 threat on campus to ‘new normal’ as cases decline."