{"id":498,"date":"2021-09-21T01:51:51","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T01:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.berea.edu\/covid-19\/?p=498"},"modified":"2021-09-21T01:51:51","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T01:51:51","slug":"covid-19-update-september-20-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legacy.berea.edu\/covid-19\/2021\/09\/21\/covid-19-update-september-20-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 Update: September 20, 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Bereans,<\/p>\n

This is the\u00a0campus\u00a0update for\u00a0Monday,\u00a0September\u00a020, 2021.<\/p>\n

Quarantine, testing and vaccination update<\/h2>\n

As of today, we have just one on-campus student in precautionary quarantine (at home).<\/p>\n

As to on-campus employees, we have just one staff member (Stephenson Hall) who has tested positive and is quarantining.\u00a0\u00a0 We have one CDL employee who is quarantining as a close contact due to cases within that individual\u2019s family.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Our overall employee vaccination percentage remains at 88%, and, for non-PFE employees, our percentage again rounds to 90%.\u00a0 Let\u2019s keep going; we can do even better<\/strong>.\u00a0 The Delta surge may or may not be plateauing, but Madison County has\u00a0had a very difficult week.<\/p>\n

COVID-19 POLICIES FOR BEREA COLLEGE EMPLOYEES have been revised as of Tuesday, September 14, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n

These are worth a careful read by all employees<\/strong>.\u00a0 The important changes include:\u00a0requiring CDL employee vaccinations; and changes to reflect the Request for Temporary Adjusted Work Accommodation process.\u00a0 The latter was released last week.<\/p>\n

Kentucky and Madison County update<\/h2>\n

The Madison County Health Department reported a total of 978 new cases for the week ending yesterday.\u00a0 This brings the average number of new cases per day up to 140, the largest number ever.\u00a0 Last week\u2019s decrease seems to have been an aberration, with Labor Day and school activities probably playing an important role.\u00a0 We are still far into the\u00a0Red Zone<\/strong>, now at about 139 cases per day per 100,000 persons.\u00a0 The department also reports that at this point, 48.3% of county residents have been fully vaccinated, up by 1.4% from last week.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the total number of deaths in the county attributable to COVID-19 as reported by the State has again increased, this week by two, and now stands at 126.<\/p>\n

Kentucky reported 27,932\u00a0new cases for the\u00a0week\u00a0ending today for an average of\u00a03990\u00a0cases\/day,\u00a0down by 3.5%\u00a0from last week\u2019s number.\u00a0 The Commonwealth has reported\u00a0268 deaths over the last\u00a0week\u00a0for an average number of deaths\/day of\u00a038.\u00a0\u00a0The death rate is not yet decreasing, which always happens since deaths lag diagnoses by several weeks. \u00a0The latest\u00a0test positivity rate\u00a0is 12.18%,\u00a0which is finally going down.\u00a0 The\u00a0overall\u00a0Kentucky data overall looks to me like we\u00a0have reached\u00a0a plateau, unlike the Madison County data, which took quite a leap in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

Vaccination policy at other colleges and universities<\/h2>\n

As of this morning, the Chronicle of Higher Education\u00a0lists\u00a01,033\u00a0schools that will require vaccination in the fall<\/a>, an increase of 10 schools over last week.<\/p>\n

\n

Message from an alum<\/h2>\n

Dr. Mee Yang is an alumna, a bio major from the class of 2004 who went on to medical school and is now an M.D. practicing at a small hospital in Oroville, CA.\u00a0 Prof. Ron Rosen noticed the following Facebook post from her last week:<\/p>\n

Finally OUT OF QUARANTINE JAIL – AGAIN.<\/p>\n

I HATE COVID. I very much dislike COVID naysayers and selfish, entitled people too.<\/p>\n

I had COVID in 11\/2020, right before Thanksgiving.\u00a0 I got my Pfizer vaccine towards the end of January and early February.<\/p>\n

I finished a 13-day work stretch recently and felt a little tired. Figured it was from working 13 days, in the hospital, taking care of mostly COVID patients.\u00a0 To be careful, I got checked. \u00a0COVID positive AGAIN. And with young kids, of course there was NO WAY to quarantine from my 5 kids. They ALL TESTED POSITIVE too.<\/p>\n

I thank God for protecting my parents\/brothers\/sister and sister-in-law who were helping me watch my kids while I worked those 13 shifts.\u00a0 They tested negative.<\/p>\n

I thank God for keeping my kids and me safe and only giving us mild symptoms.<\/p>\n

At least 5 of the people I took care of during those 13 days have died.\u00a0 I asked the vaccinated patients I took care of if they regret taking the vaccine since they ended up getting COVID anyway.\u00a0 Their answer was, “no” because they know they could’ve been much sicker had they not been vaccinated.\u00a0 I asked the many COVID patients I took care of who were not vaccinated if they wished they would’ve taken the vaccine- they all said “Yes” they wished they would’ve.<\/p>\n

I have seen friends and family post of people they know who have died recently from COVID.\u00a0 COVID does not care if you’re young or old, if you have a large family who is depending on you or who loves you, if you have multiple comorbid conditions or are healthy at baseline. Young and otherwise healthy people are dying from COVID too.<\/p>\n

I’m asking again to PLEASE VACCINATE, it’s not a 100% guarantee you won’t get COVID – obviously, I got it. But it will likely make your course less severe. Don’t be the stories we hear of people who didn’t think it would happen to them and who end up from their death bed telling people to vaccinate.<\/p>\n

Continue to MASK.<\/p>\n

Continue to be careful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I checked with her to see if it was OK for me to share with all of you.\u00a0 Her response, \u201cIt would be an honor for the message to be shared with the campus community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stay safe,\u00a0get vaccinated, stay in touch,
\nLyle Roelofs, President
\nBerea College<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Bereans, This is the\u00a0campus\u00a0update for\u00a0Monday,\u00a0September\u00a020, 2021. Quarantine, testing and vaccination update As of today, we have just one on-campus student in precautionary quarantine (at home). As to on-campus employees, we have just one staff member (Stephenson Hall) who has tested positive and is quarantining.\u00a0\u00a0 We have one CDL employee who is quarantining as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":233,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid-19"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCOVID-19 Update: September 20, 2021 - COVID-19 Policies and Communications<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"COVID-19 Update: September 20, 2021 - COVID-19 Policies and Communications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear Bereans, This is the\u00a0campus\u00a0update for\u00a0Monday,\u00a0September\u00a020, 2021. 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