As an alum of Grand Valley State..this was some sad news to come across the desk this morning.

MLive, citing the university's COVID-19 Data Dashboard, reported that as of Tusday, September 8th, out of the 28,000 students that attend, there is a total of 394 active cases between students, faculty and staff.

Now, I spent three out of my four years at Grand Valley State living on campus and I cannot imagine the uneasiness some of these students must be feeling.

Grand Valley State University is an amazing place to learn and the faculty and staff are always willing to help students; however, I can't deny I questioned certain policies and decisions like anyone who is spending tens of thousands of dollars on an education would.

According to MLive and the GVSU COVID-19 Data Database, 90 percent of the 394 cases come from students who live in off-campus housing. Cases have been surging since students went back to campus August 223rd through the 27th and began a mix of virtual and in-person classes on August 31st.

In order to keep up on testing students, GVSU teamed up with Spectrum Health to conduct random COVID-19 tests on students, faculty and staff in efforts to identify "hot spots."

Between August 21st and September 1st, as MLive shared data that is available at this time, the university did 2,843 tests.

Of the 394 positive results, 95 were identified through GVSU and Spectrum Health's partnership while a solid majority were identified by local health departments like Ottawa County and reported to the university.

MLive reported GVSU compares to other universities in Michigan like Michigan State, Central Michigan and Western Michigan who have reported less than 200 positive cases.

GVSU Vice Provost of Health Jean Nagelkerk said (in a prepared statement to MLive) "“At this time, Michigan public universities are not all publicly reporting the same metrics for testing or positive cases. GVSU is updating its dashboard at the end of each business day.”

Every year when students make their way back to GVSU's campuses in Allendale and Grand Rapids, I would always feel very nostalgic and found myself wishing I could go back in time. This year...not so much.

Hopefully cases will start to go down and GVSU will be able to continue testing and allocating resources for the benefit of all who spend their days at the amazing university. Remember Lakers, anchor down and mask up!

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