Butler County trended in the wrong direction this week in new confirmed COVID-19 cases, while Slippery Rock University officials believe the worst is behind them for the semester.

According to Friday's report by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Butler County added another 34 confirmed cases over two days with 20 on Thursday and 14 on Friday.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 1,089 county residents have tested positive for COVID-19. As of Friday, the county's death toll remained at 25.

On Oct. 2, the county's positive cases total was 994, meaning in the past week, the county has added 95 new confirmed cases. The week before that, spanning from Sept. 25 to Oct. 1, the county's new confirmed cases rose by 44.

The Department of Health has a three-tiered system for gauging community transmission based on percent positivity, which can be tracked through the department's COVID-19 Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard on its website.

Butler County has been listed as moderate since the system was introduced, essentially replacing the color-coded system for removing stay-at-home order restrictions.

The state often makes changes for counties between the tiers in its report on Mondays, and these decisions are often based on trends of more than one week.

While more residents are testing positive, Butler Health System is still reporting in the single digits of inpatients at both of its hospitals.

Butler Memorial Hospital is treating three patients, two of whom have confirmed cases and one is suspected of having the virus. Clarion Hospital has one inpatient with a confirmed case.

Multiple school districts across the county have also begun to report COVID-19 cases, but none has the growth in numbers that Slippery Rock University has experienced since it began its fall semester.

Corona at SRU

SRU returned to campus in August and within a few weeks saw its first case.

Since Aug. 20, SRU has had 139 students test positive for the virus. Sixteen of those cases have come between Oct. 2 and Thursday.

“When you have this many people in close proximity, you're going to have some positive cases,” said Kristina Benkeser, director of SRU's Health and Wellness Center.

Benkeser associated the worst of SRU's numbers with two periods. The first was shortly after students arrived on campus, likely bringing the virus with them from wherever they came.

She said the second spike in COVID-19 activity came after Labor Day, when students had a brief break.

“When they came back, about seven days after that, we started to see an increase in positivity,” Benkeser said.

Preliminary expectations were to have about 1,600 students living on SRU's campus this year, a reduction from about 2,800 on-campus students in years past.

SRU's cumulative case total also includes off-campus students and any student who has been on campus in the past 14 days, so not all of the 139 students who tested positive live on campus.

Isolation

Whether a student is on-campus or off-campus, they are all being asked to do the same thing when a COVID-19 situation arises.

As part of its reporting, SRU dictates the number of students in quarantine and the number of students in isolation.

“Quarantine is for well people who have been exposed,” Benkeser said. “Isolation is for sick people who are waiting for their COVID test to come back or for people who have tested positive.”

Currently, 33 students are in isolation.

“We don't wait for a positive result, we immediately isolate them,” she said.

Flu season has also begun as of late September, and health officials have warned that the two diseases look similar and inflate probable case counts. This may also affect SRU and other colleges.

Currently, SRU has 37 students in quarantine.

“We're quicker to act to separate the sick — and potentially sick — from the well because this is communal living,” Benkeser said.

Team effort

For the students, these types of mitigation tactics are not easy. They stay in their rooms for 10 days while either waiting for symptoms to subside or waiting on test results.

The students work remotely from their room, have meals delivered and have SRU staff checking on their mental and physical health.

“Ten days completely by yourself, sitting in your room, really, you shouldn't have any in-person contact during that time, and that's extremely difficult to maintain,” Benkeser said.

While isolation can be difficult, combatting the loneliness is as much a part of the plan as keeping the sick away from the healthy, according to Benkeser.

She said many departments are involved in taking care of students who are in quarantine or isolation. SRU Dining makes sure students are getting balanced meals, and Student Support Services checks in with students to make sure they are mentally healthy.

Benkeser said throughout the pandemic, the Health and Wellness Center has continued to offer its routine services, although occasionally it will opt to do so through telehealth. She said there are still many services they provide in person, and the center has a qualified medical professional available to students 24 hours, every day.

She said she, her team and the other departments are committed to keeping students healthy through the pandemic and beyond.

“A great deal of time and focus this year are spent working with students who have been affected by the virus in some shape or form,” she said. “It's a team effort with a lot of moving parts to meet the needs of the students as well as maintain the safety of the campus.”