Dear Bereans,

This is the update for Monday, July 19, 2021.

Quarantine, testing and vaccination update

As of today, no on-campus students or employees are in any sort of quarantine.  We are at about 82% employees (86% of non-PFE employees) who have documented their fully vaccinated status.  WELL DONE BEREANS!

Kentucky and Madison County update

The Madison County Health Department reported a total of 71 new cases for the week ending yesterday.  The 7-day average of new cases per day has doubled to 10!  We are still in the Yellow Zone, but now just barely at 9.7 new cases per day per 100,000 residents.  (The Orange Zone starts at 10 cases/day.)  The department also reports that at this point 41.2% of county residents have been fully vaccinated, an increase of only 0.3% over last week.  The total number of deaths in the county attributable to COVID-19 as reported by the State has increased by one to 113; we have lost another resident of our county.

Kentucky reports 3068 new cases for the 7 days ending today for a 7-day average of 438 which is again up pretty significantly over last week.  The Commonwealth has also reported 36 deaths over the last seven days so the average of numbers of deaths/day has increased to 5, and the latest test positivity rate is up significantly, now to 5.48%.

The delta variant appears to be establishing itself in Kentucky, as it is many other states with low vaccination rates across the country.  At last report in Kentucky about 99% of the new cases are among the unvaccinated!

Vaccination policy at other colleges and universities

As of this morning, the Chronicle of Higher Education lists 583 schools that will require vaccination in the fall.

A federal judge today upheld Indiana University’s vaccination requirement for students, the first case of its kind to come to trial.

Stay safe, get vaccinated, stay in touch,
Lyle Roelofs, President
Berea College