Villanova COVID-19 Cases Surge With Nearly 300 In 5 Days

VILLANOVA, PA — COVID-19 cases at Villanova University have surged among students over the last five days, and reserve isolation beds have been opened as a result.

Since Jan. 29, 294 in the campus community have tested positive for COVID-19, and all but five of those were among students, according to the university's case tracking dashboard.

In the 10 days prior to Jan. 29, positive COVID-19 tests totaled 39.

As a result of the surge of cases, Villanova said it has activated another 270 beds that were on reserve. As of Jan. 31, the university's bed capacity is 430.

The university reported 41 percent of its beds are in use as of today. The dashboard shows 85 in the campus community are in isolation and 93 are in quarantine. Students who live within 300 miles of campus are sent home to isolate or quarantine and are not added in the bed count, the dashboard explains.

The university's accounting of the spring 2021 semester has reported 333 cases on campus since Jan. 19, and of those 312 are still considered active, 21 are considered recovered from COVID-19.

Villanova residential students account for 249 of the positive tests since the semester began, non-residential students have seen 79 positive tests, and employees of Villanova have reported 5 positive COVID-19 tests.

On Jan. 29, 31 cases were reported; on Jan. 30, 66; on Jan. 31, 64; on Feb. 1, 62; and on Feb. 2, 71 new COVID-19 cases were reported.

Villanova's Fall 2020 enrollment was just under 11,000. About 6,800 are undergraduate students.