University of Michigan President 

Mark 
Schlissel 
announced 
the 

University is taking several steps 
to increase its testing capabilities 
during his weekly U-M Ann Arbor 
COVID-19 update email to the U-M 
community Feb. 5. 

Starting Feb. 16, the University 

will require weekly COVID-19 
testing for graduate and professional 
program students living on campus. 
The University will also offer free 
testing to “Ann Arbor community 
members residing near the U-M Ann 
Arbor campus” through the end of 
the month and pop-up testing to 
students in quarantine housing. 

The 
decision 
comes 
after 

the Washtenaw County Health 
Department issued a stay-in-place 
recommendation from Jan. 27 to Feb. 
7 to contain an increase in COVID-
19 cases as well as an outbreak of 
the new highly transmissible B.1.1.7 
variant of COVID-19, the latter 
which led to a two-week pause of all 
U-M athletics. 

Additionally, Schlissel announced 

University students currently make 
up almost half of positive COVID-19 
tests in Washtenaw County.

In an email to The Michigan Daily, 

Emily Toth Martin, an associate 

professor of epidemiology at the 
School of Public Health, explained 
the reasoning behind the decision to 
test graduate students. 

“We 
are 
seeing 
a 
higher 

proportion of cases occurring in 
graduate students overall compared 
to at this point last semester,” Martin 
wrote. “Concerns about the potential 
of a more transmissible variant 
heightens the need to make sure that 
people in any group residence hall is 
being tested regularly.” 

Martin, a key player in the 

University administration’s response 
to COVID-19, wrote the University 
was offering free testing to residents 
of Ann Arbor in an effort to help 
the Washtenaw County Health 
Department and the Michigan 
Department of Health and Human 
Services respond to B.1.1.7 variant 
infections.

“This testing is being offered 

through the county, and the state 
and county are offering additional 
nearby testing sites that are updated 
regularly on their website,” Martin 
wrote. “We are working together 
with the county to test both students 
and community members living 
close to campus at the IM Sports 
Building.”

Ann Arbor residents who are 

not experiencing any symptoms of 
COVID-19 and have not had a recent 
exposure to the virus can get tested 

at the Intramural Sports Building on 
Mondays from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 
Wednesdays and Fridays from 1 p.m. 
to 5 p.m. until Feb. 28. There is no 
sign-up required to be tested.

In an email to The Daily, Dr. 

Lindsey Mortenson, the University 
Health Service medical director 
and the chief of UHS Psychiatry 
Clinic, wrote that pop-up testing is 
occuring in areas where an increase 
of COVID-19 cases have been found.

“Students 
in 
quarantine 
& 

isolation housing have either already 
tested positive, or had a high-risk 
exposure,” Mortenson wrote. “For 
students in the latter category, UHS 
and DPSS deliver test kits to them 
directly.”

Martin wrote the transition to 

indoors due to cold weather and 
concerns for increased cases during 
the winter was the cause of this 
sudden expansion in U-M’s testing 
capability. 

“We are hoping that we will be 

able to get as many local students 
to participate in weekly testing as 
we can,” Martin wrote. “Numbers 
will naturally go up as we test more 
thoroughly, but we hope this will 
ultimately reduce the number of 
big outbreaks that occur on and off-
campus.”

The University of Michigan 

announced it is “optimistic and 
hopeful” for a more normal 
semester in Fall 2021 on Monday 
evening, 
though 
no 
official 

decisions have been made. A tweet 
from the official U-M account 
said U-M staff and faculty are 
working hard to go back to more 
in-person classes in the fall.

“While no decisions have been 

made regarding fall term, we 
remain optimistic it will be much 
more normal,” the tweet reads. 
“Faculty, staff & leadership are all 
eager to do their part to return to 
as normal a semester as possible 
& appreciate your patience & 
understanding.”

In a longer announcement 

sent 
to 
U-M 
parents, 

U-M 
spokesperson 
Rick 

Fitzgerald 
emphasized 
the 

administration’s 
eagerness 

for greater normality in the 
fall. He wrote the University 
will continue to follow public 
health 
recommendations 

going into Fall 2021, meaning 
campus will likely not be 
completely as it was pre-
March 2020.

“The 
university 
will, 
of 

course, make decisions about 
the fall term that are informed 
by the then current status of the 
pandemic in our region and heed 
the advice of our campus, local 
and state public health officials,” 
Fitzgerald wrote. “It is likely 
that some public health safety 
precautions will remain in place 
in the fall, such as wearing face 
coverings and maintaining social 
distancing.” 

In the University’s COVID-

19 briefing on Feb. 12, Chief 
Health Officer Preeti Malani 
reiterated 
the 
hope 
that 

things will continue to get 
better on campus. Martino 
Harmon, vice president for 
student 
life, 
said 
Student 

Life and Michigan Housing 
are continuously working to 
find a best-case fall housing 
situation and planning for 
multiple possible scenarios, 
though he did specify what 
scenarios 
Student 
Life 
is 

considering. 

Rich 
Holcomb, 
associate 

vice 
president 
for 
human 

resources, said at the briefing 
that most non-teaching staff 
hope to continue to work from 
home in the fall, which he said 
would not impact a potentially 
“in-person” 
semester. 

According to a survey released 
in last Friday’s briefing, 87% 
of the U-M staff is interested 
in continuing remote or hybrid 
work after the pandemic. 

While 
the 
University 

eventually aims to distribute 
vaccines to everybody who 
wants one, Fitzgerald wrote 
they still don’t have enough 
to make this a reality. Fall 
semester hinges on vaccine 
availability, Fitzgerald wrote.

“The big unknown remains 

the availability of the vaccine, 
which today is in very short 
supply,” Fitzgerald wrote. “We 
have developed the capacity to 
vaccinate as many as 25,000 
persons per week and remain 
ready to provide vaccines for all 
members of our community who 
wish to be vaccinated according 
to state guidelines once supplies 
are adequate.”

Fitzgerald 
concluded 
the 

announcement by acknowledging 
the toll the pandemic has taken 
on both the University and the 
nation. 

“Finally, 
we 
want 
to 

acknowledge that the ongoing 
uncertainty of the pandemic is 
wearing on all of us,” Fitzgerald 
wrote. “It’s been emotionally 
draining as each of us has had to 
adjust our work and personal lives 
to appropriately respond to this 
public health crisis that already 
has claimed the lives of 485,000 
Americans.” 

COVID-19 cases and death rates 

are highest in correlation with the 
percentage of racial and ethnic 
minorities in a county’s population, 
researchers from the University of 
Michigan Institute for Healthcare 
Policy and Innovation have found. 

The 
group 
of 
researchers 

developing this study told The 
Michigan Daily they wanted to 
compare the importance of social 
factors with the rate communities 
are contracting COVID-19, as 
well as the communities that are 
suffering the most deaths. 

The researchers used the Social 

Vulnerability Index to analyze the 
vulnerability and disadvantage 
of each community in a broad 
domain, according to Renuka 
Tipirneni, assistant professor of 
internal medicine. This index 
was developed by the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention 
to analyze how social factors 
influence a community’s COVID-
19 risk.

According to an article by 

Michigan News, the SVI gives 
each county a 10-point score to 
analyze how social measures 

influence the number of cases 
in each county. Some examples 
of these measures are poverty 
rate, income and education level, 
housing type and English language 
ability. The measures also include 
single-parent families, percentage 
of people over 65 or under 17, 
access to a personal vehicle, racial 
and ethnic minority population 
percentage and disability.

Monita Karmakar, a senior 

statistician 
with 
the 
division 

of general medicine within the 
department of internal medicine, 
said the main goal of the research 
was to see if a social association 
existed 
between 
the 
social 

demographic risk factors and U.S. 
COVID-19 incidence and mortality 
rate at a county-level analysis.

“Initially, when the COVID-

19 pandemic hit the U.S., we saw 
a lot of incidents and mortality 
and a lot of burden of the disease 
amongst minority communities,” 
Karamakar 
said. 
“Which 
led 

us to think that there might be 
some kind of neighborhood-level 
disadvantage that increases one’s 
chances of getting the disease 
and eventually mortality from the 
disease.”

Tipirneni said the group found 

that the higher the level of SVI 

or disadvantage, the higher the 
number of COVID-19 cases and 
deaths were in that county.

As vaccines are beginning to 

be distributed across the state, 
Tipirneni said she believes this 
index could also benefit the state 
of Michigan with targeting the 
supply and demand of distributing 
vaccines.

“This index is already being 

used in a variety of ways that I 
think are useful, and then we 
could think of other ways to use 
it in the future,” Tipirneni said. 
“The state health department in 
Michigan has actually been using 
the Social Vulnerability Index to 
target specific communities at 
higher risk for increased testing 
for 
COVID-19 
for 
increased 

resources.”

Since the beginning of the 

pandemic, there have been many 
counties in Michigan that have 
been known as hotspots due to 
the increased amount of COVID-
19 cases in that area. Tipirnei 
shared that the countries with 
the most cases at the time of their 
analysis were Macomb, Wayne 
and Oakland Counties. 

michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Wednesday, February 17, 2021

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Student COVID-19 cases represent 
nearly half of total county cases

University of Michigan officials 

reported an increase in positive 
COVID-19 
cases 
among 
U-M 

students Friday, mainly attributed to 
large off-campus social gatherings. 
According to an email from U-M 
President Mark Schlissel, University-
related COVID-19 cases currently 
comprise nearly half of total cases 
in Washtenaw County — up from a 
third of total cases on Feb. 3. 

“We are seeing increases in 

student COVID-19 cases, spread 
across all levels of students and 
largely due to social gatherings,” 
Schlissel’s email reads. “New cases 
amongst faculty and staff are at a 

low level and are not increasing. 
Overall, U-M cases represent about 
half of the total cases in Washtenaw 
County.”

This 
increase 
occurred 

one week after the end of 
Washtenaw 
County 
Health 

Department’s 
stay-in-place 

recommendation and Michigan 
Athletics’ 
two-week 
halt 

on all athletic activity. The 
recommendation and athletic 
pause were mainly in response 
to diagnosed cases of the more 
contagious 
B.1.1.7 
variant 

among U-M students. 

As of Feb. 5, there are 23 cases 

of the B.1.1.7 variant diagnosed in 
Washtenaw County. All cases are 
associated directly or indirectly with 
the University.

Under 
the 
stay-in-place 

recommendation, 
students 
were 

permitted to leave their residence for 
in-person classes, work and research. 
Students were also permitted to 
obtain food and medical supplies, 
among other exceptions. 

At Friday’s weekly COVID-19 

briefing, Dr. Robert Ernst, director 
of University Health Services and 
chair of the Campus Health Response 
Committee, said the rate of off-campus 
positive cases flattened during the 
stay-in-place recommendation but 
have once again spiked.

“We’re worried because we are 

tracking these cases back to off-
campus social activity,” Ernst said. 
“When we see bunches of cases 
come in after a party or something 
like that, it really is disruptive to the 

system.”

In the past two weeks, there 

have been 1103 positive cases in 
Washtenaw County and the weekly 
positivity rate is 2.6%.

As of Feb. 16, graduate students 

coming to campus regularly are 
required to undergo weekly COVID-
19 testing through the Community 
Sampling and Tracking Program. 
Undergraduates living on campus 
or using campus facilities have been 
required to participate in mandatory 
testing since the beginning of the 
semester. The compliance rate for 
mandatory weekly testing among 
undergraduates on campus has been 
95% or higher, Schlissel wrote. 

University announces 

optimism for more ‘normal’ 

Fall 2021 semester

NAVYA GUPTA
Daily Staff Reporter

ALEC COHEN/Daily

PAIGE HODDER
Daily Staff Reporter

U-M reports positivity increase due to large off-campus social gatherings

Hopes for more in-person classes, increased 
campus density hinge on vaccine availability

Researchers utilize social 
vulnerability index to analyze 
COVID-19 risk by county

KAITLYN LUCKOFF

Daily Staff Reporter

Study finds correlation between virus cases, death 
rates and racial/ethnic minority percentage

RESEARCH

NEWS BRIEFS

ADMINISTRATION

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

‘U’ President Mark 

Schlissel announces greater 

U-M testing capabilities

JARED DOUGALL
Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Sampling program grows to include grad students, Ann Arbor residents

ACADEMICS

