COVID-19 cases declined sharply this week at Northwestern University. The school reported 50 cases, compared to 98 the previous week. That’s an decline of 49%.
The cases this week affected 32 students, 13 staff and five faculty members.
The school says that over the seven-day period ending Wednesday it conducted 7,157 tests for the disease, down from 7,817 the previous period. With 62 new positive cases reported in NU’s tests, the positive rate was 0.87%, down from 0.99% in the previous period.
NU says it has conducted a total of 67,834 tests since Aug 15.
The COVID cases reported by the university are included in the City of Evanston’s case counts if, and only if, the person involved lives in Evanston.
To look at the data another way, NU, with about 30,800 students, faculty and staff, had 16.2 cases per 10,000 population in the most recent period, compared to a rate of 31.8 the previous week.
Evanston during the same period had 254 cases among its 75,000 residents, or 33.9 cases per 10,000 population, compared to a rate of 33.2 the previous week.