UNC reports 135 new cases of COVID-19, only four rooms are left in its quarantine dorm

The University's campus quarantine dorm has 5.5 percent capacity available — four rooms left out of 73 — for students who are identified to be close contacts of an individual who tests positive for COVID-19, as of Monday at 3 p.m. according to UNC's COVID-19 dashboard. 

UNC confirmed 135 new cases of COVID-19 between Aug. 10 and Aug. 16, 130 students and five employees.

As of Monday there are 324 total cumulative positive cases of COVID-19 since February 2020.

The University has 87.1 percent capacity available for isolation rooms — rooms for individuals who are confirmed to be positive. 

UNC's total positivity rate was 13.6 percent last week. UNC’s total positivity rate on the dashboard since February 2020 increased from 8.9 percent last week to 10.6 percent on Monday. 

Since Friday, the University has confirmed four clusters of COVID-19, at Ehringhaus Residence Hall, Hinton James Residence Hall, Granville Towers and the off-campus fraternity house Sigma Nu.

Associate Vice Chancellor for University Communications Beth Keith said the University will not disclose the number of cases in each cluster to comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. The University has also said it will update the dashboard weekly to protect student privacy. 

The dashboard was updated Monday at 3 p.m. — tuition for the fall semester is due at 5 p.m. on Monday.

On Monday, the Dean of the Gillings School of Global Public Health Barbara Rimer wrote in a blog post that "it is time for an off-ramp."

"The rationale for taking an off-ramp now is that the number of clusters is growing and soon could become out of control, threatening the health of others on campus and in the community and putting scarce resources at risk," Rimer wrote.

"We have tried to make this work, but it is not working," Rimer wrote. 

What is the COVID-19 dashboard? 

The UNC COVID-19 dashboard provides metrics used by the University to assess COVID-19 on campus. The dashboard is overseen by the 11-person Roadmap Implementation team. Key metrics available on this dashboard include: 

• Availability of tests.
• Turnaround time of 24 - 36 hours for test results.
• Quarantine and isolation capacity.

UNC has two residence halls set aside for quarantine and isolation. The isolation dorm, Parker Residence Hall, is for students who test positive for COVID-19. The quarantine dorm, Craige North is for students who are identified as close contacts. The campus isolation dorm has a total of 85 rooms and the campus quarantine dorm a total of 73 rooms. 

The Daily Tar Heel has a COVID-19 dashboard, which is updated as new information became available: 

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