Duke reports 6 new positive COVID-19 tests for students, 3 for faculty and staff out of 12,313 total.

There were nine new positive coronavirus tests at Duke between Sept. 12 and Sept. 18, out of 12,313 total tests, according to data released Monday on the University’s COVID-19 testing tracker.

Among students, there were six positive tests out of 11,002 total, for a positivity rate of 0.055%. That includes two positives among students who participated in surveillance testing, out of 10,815. 

Additionally, three of 89 tests were positive among students who had symptoms or were determined to have been in close contact with someone who tested positive. Duke conducted 98 entry tests for returning students, according to the tracker, and one came back positive.

There were also three new positive tests among faculty and staff out of 1,311 total, for a positivity rate of 0.22%. That number includes one positive surveillance tests out of 1,160, and two positives out of 151 tests conducted on faculty and staff who had symptoms or were determined to have been in close contact with someone who had a positive COVID-19 test.  

The new student entry tests are a change from last week, when no students were entry-tested. They come more than ten days after the planned end of entry testing, which was supposed to wrap up with graduate and professional students returning to Durham from Aug. 17 to Aug. 30, according to the tracker. 

This marks the first time that Duke has conducted more than 10,000 student tests in a single week, with the number rising 3,923 since last week, when Duke conducted 7,079 tests, many of them self-administered as part of pool testing. The number of tests for faculty and staff more than doubled, from the previous week’s 503 to 1,311.

In total, 105 people were placed in precautionary quarantine last week, according to Monday’s update, while 94 were released from quarantine. That includes 89 students and 16 faculty and staff. A total of nine people are in isolation, including six students and three faculty and staff. 

Since Aug. 2, Duke has administered 43,775 tests and reported a total of 67 positives among faculty, staff and students. The University has conducted multiple kinds of testing, including entry testing of every returning student, testing based on contact tracing and pooled surveillance testing of asymptomatic people.