Mercer reports 10 new COVID-19 cases

Mercer University announced 10 new cases of COVID-19 across its campuses in its weekly testing summary posted Friday.

Of those 10 cases, eight are among students. Five are students on the Macon campus, two are students on the Atlanta campus and one is a student on the Savannah campus. The other two positives are faculty or staff members, one in Macon and another in Atlanta.

The 10 positive cases come from a total of 520 tests conducted between Oct. 9 and Oct. 15. That’s a test positivity rate of just 1.92%. 

The positivity rate measures the percentage of individuals who were tested and received a positive result. A positivity rate between 3-12% indicates adequate testing of a population, while a positivity rate under 3% is considered a target number for curbing the spread of a disease. Mercer’s test positivity rate has been on a downward trend since mid-September.

Testing remained consistent from last week, from 528 tests to 520 this week. This week’s number of tests was the lowest since the report released Sept. 4.

In the past three weeks, the number of new positive cases across Mercer’s campuses has remained relatively stable, hovering between 10-13 per week.