Hello Knox,

As a reminder, Knox data comes from the Knox Together Page, and these numbers include both staff and students. Data for the State of Illinois and Knox Country comes from the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH). 

May 4 – 9

Knox County reported a case rate per 100,000 of 23.9. 25% of ICU beds are available. There have been 0 Covid-19 hospital admissions in the past week. 0 deaths have been reported this week.

The State of Illinois reported a case rate per 100,000 of 47.6. 23% of ICU beds are available. There have been 95 Covid-19 hospital admissions in the past week. 45 deaths have been reported this past week. These numbers are slightly increased from the week before.

Campus tested 307 people last week, slightly less than the week before. There were 20 positive Covid-19 tests. This leads to a test positivity of 6.5%. To put this into perspective, the week of Jan. 4 2022 there were 70 positive tests on campus. The highest number of cases per week for all of the 2021-2022 school year was 9.

Was Flunk Day the Cause?

In previous communication, Administration indicated that they would reevaluate mask policies if the test positivity surpassed 5%.

The Dean of the College, Mike Schneider, and the Vice President, MarQuita Barker, sent out an update on Monday. They reported that out of 307 tests there were 15 positive cases, leading to a 4.9% test positivity rate.

They also “received reports of five cases in isolation not tested through our on-campus system”. These extra five cases were reported on the Knox Together Page and were included in my calculation of the 6.5% positivity rate.

In this update administration repeated almost the same information from the last Covid-19 testing update – that they will update policies if it becomes necessary but are not currently doing so.

Many students, especially those on YikYak believe that Flunk Day was the cause of this uptick in cases.