Alejandra Yañez | THE RIDER
The UTRGV COVID-19 Task Force’s Confirmed Cases Dashboard reported 11 positive cases on campus between Jan. 15 and 22.
Doug Arney, vice president for Administrative Support Services and chair of the UTRGV Infectious Disease Committee, said of the 11 cases on campus, six are students, including four student athletes; one is a student employee and one a graduate student. The remaining five cases are staff members.
Arney said UTRGV currently has six students, who previously tested positive, being quarantined on campus.
A female staff member at UTRGV died a few weeks ago of COVID-19, according to Arney.
Dr. Michael Dobbs, vice dean of Clinical Affairs for the UTRGV School of Medicine and chief medical officer for UT Health RGV, said 92,199 COVID-19 PCR tests were administered by UTRGV between March 13, 2020, and Jan. 24.
Dobbs said across the Rio Grande Valley, the positivity rate is about 20% at the UTRGV testing sites, many of which are repeat tests.
“These are mostly people who had symptoms or exposures and came in to get tested because they were concerned,” he said.
On Tuesday, the University Marketing and Communications team announced access to the UTRGV COVID-19 Vaccine Portal for faculty, staff and student employees. According to the email sent by the department, the portal will be available to the rest of the student body in a few weeks.
The purpose of the Vaccine Portal is to account for every individual in the campus community and see if they are interested in getting the vaccine, if they qualify, and if they have been vaccinated already.
“This is our attempt to try to figure out our campus community–faculty, students and staff–and see who’s out there, who wants to get the vaccine, who’s had it and then work our way down the list,” Arney said.
He said the university is attempting to get everybody in by the rules and get them scheduled as soon as possible.
For people who do not currently qualify for the 1A and 1B categories, the portal is used to have names on record and get them in as soon as their category opens for vaccination.
“Let’s say you don’t qualify because you don’t have any of these things wrong with you, your immune system’s not compromised, your BMI is fine,” Arney said. “So, really, you’re not eligible yet, but we want to know who you are, if you are part of our campus community, so when you are eligible, we can get you in.”.
Asked how the university is scheduling patients for the second dosage of the vaccine, Arney replied that individuals are scheduled for the second dosage after the first is administered.
“We don’t schedule you unless we have enough vaccines,” he said.
Arney said in the case of a “no show,” the university will call the next person in line to receive the vaccine. Due to the way the vaccine is stored and refrigerated, the vials that are scheduled to be used for a specific day must be administered that same day.
“We have to find someone to give the vaccine to; otherwise, they throw it away, and we don’t want to do that,” he said.
