Dear Bereans,

This is the update for Monday, August 9, 2021.   We are very much looking forward to welcoming our new students, arriving on Saturday.  Travel safe, everyone!

Quarantine, testing and vaccination update

As of today, we have one on-campus student in precautionary quarantine, and all employees have completed their quarantines.

We continue to make good progress on vaccination and are at about 85% among employees (up by 2%!) who have documented their fully vaccinated status.   For non-PFE employees, our percentage now rounds to 89%, so that is up by 2%, as well.  Well done, Bereans!

Because of the heightened contagiousness of the delta variant, epidemiologists believe that we will need to be in the 85% – 95% range of vaccination percentage to limit the likelihood of an outbreak on campus.  We are getting there!  Unfortunately, in our county and state, the percentages are much lower, so outbreaks off campus will almost certainly continue.

Kentucky and Madison County update

The Madison County Health Department reported a total of 230 new cases for the week ending on Sunday.  The 7-day average of new cases per day has increased significantly again to 33, which puts us further into the Red Zone at 31 new cases per day per 100,000 residents.  The department also reports that at this point 43.1% of county residents have been fully vaccinated, an increase of 0.9% over last week.  The total number of deaths in the county attributable to COVID-19 as reported by the State remains at 113.

Kentucky reported 14,152 new cases for the 7 days ending today for a 7-day average of 2022 cases/day, an increase by 50% over last week’s number.  The Commonwealth has reported 39 deaths over the last seven days for an average number of deaths/day of 6, again a significant increase, and the latest test positivity rate is up by another one percent, now to 10.78%.   At this point the increases being seen in the Commonwealth are nearly exponential (that is, increasing by the same factor every week) but not quite; last week’s percentage increase was 60% and this week’s 50%.

Dr. Steven Stack, commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health, has reported the latest stats concerning vaccination and COVID.  From March 1 to Aug. 4, 2021, 92.3% of COVID-19 cases, 91.4% of COVID-19 hospitalizations and 88.7% of COVID-19 deaths were among partially vaccinated or unvaccinated Kentuckians.

GREAT NEWS for students from the Student Financial Aid Office

1. Continuing students will receive funds from the American Rescue Plan (ARP, or HEERF III) early next week.  As stated in the ARP legislation, students are to use these funds for Cost of Attendance items, such as housing, meals, child care, etc. These are grant funds and do not have to be repaid, nor do students have to provide receipts of expenditures. All students are eligible for these funds, including international and DACA students.The chart below outlines the amounts each student will receive based on need as determined by 2021-22 Expected Family Contribution (EFC):

We hope the timing of these funds will assist students with their fall costs.

2. Summer graduates will be awarded $650 to assist with their after-graduation start-up expenses. Again, these are grant funds that do not need to be repaid.

If you have any questions, please contact Student Financial Aid counselors at finaid@berea.edu.

Vaccination policy at other colleges and universities

As of this morning, the Chronicle of Higher Education lists 664 schools that will require vaccination in the fall. This is another large increase from last week, by over 30 schools, and we have been joined by another school in Kentucky, our friends at Centre College in Danville.

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