BYU announced via Twitter on Tuesday it will update its online COVID-19 dashboard information more often than once a week.
“After listening to the concerns of faculty, students & staff, and due to the increase of disease prevalence, BYU will be updating the COVID-19 dashboard information more frequently than once a week,” the tweet read.
The change comes less than a week after the school announced it would move from daily to once-a-week reporting of COVID cases, which caused several members of the BYU community to voice their displeasure.
BYU updated its COVID case numbers shortly after the tweet was posted on Tuesday, revealing a total of 560 reported cases among students, faculty and staff as of Sept. 14. The school had previously reported a total of 258 cases among the campus community on Sept. 11. BYU also revealed Tuesday that among the 560 total cases 330 remain active, while 230 are no longer in isolation.
Additionally, the university sent out an email to students Tuesday afternoon detailing the current COVID-19 outlook on campus.
“Disease prevalence of COVID-19 within the BYU community is on the rise,” the email says. “Although an increase wasn’t entirely unexpected, the indicators the university has been monitoring (daily case count, positive test rate and positive case ratio) are higher than expected. Additionally, we likely haven’t seen the peak of the current disease cycle within our community.”
The email proceeded to reiterate school officials’ warning to students who choose not to follow BYU’s COVID safety requirements and noted the university has already disciplined 15 students with on-campus restrictions.
In addition, the email provided a few guidelines for students to mitigate the recent surge of COVID cases, such as recognizing potential symptoms, refraining from attending non-compliant gatherings and following isolation and quarantine instructions.
The email also included an anonymous survey intended to help BYU officials “understand student COVID-19 concerns, fears, and experiences on-and-off-campus.”
