Kennesaw State has surpassed 500 COVID-19 cases reported on campus. A total of 550 COVID-19 cases have been reported, as of Saturday, Sept. 19.
An open records request filed by the Sentinel showed that from late June this year through Friday, Sept. 11, there had been 483 cases of COVID-19 reported to KSU.
An update to KSU’s coronavirus FAQ webpage shows 67 additional COVID-19 cases reported at KSU for the week of Saturday, Sept. 12, through Friday, Sept. 18.
This makes the total amount of COVID-19 cases reported to KSU from Sunday, June 28, through Friday, Sept. 18, equal to 550 coronavirus cases.
It is important to note that the reported COVID-19 cases are from people studying and working in-person on campus and online, according to KSU.
Additionally, it should be noted that the 550 number only reflects the number of people who have reported they have COVID-19 and does not include if a person recovered.
The 550 is a cumulative number and does not necessarily mean there are currently 550 people with COVID-19 on campus at this moment.
The number and dates of cases reported to campus from Sunday, June 28, through Sunday, Aug. 30, can be found here, while the number and dates of cases reported from Monday, Aug. 31, through Friday, Sept. 11, are here.
The most recent week’s number can be found here.
The names of people who reported, whether they are faculty, student or staff, and whether they live on campus have all been redacted under O.C.G.A §§ 50-18-72(a)(1), (20), (21) and (37), KSU Chief Legal Affairs Officer Nwakaego Nkumeh said.
The Sentinel requested records for as far back as Wednesday, April 1, but the first reported case of COVID-19 on campus was not until Tuesday, June 28, records show.
The records also show that as the first day of school, Monday, Aug. 17, approached, the number of cases reported to KSU increased in frequency.
As the Fall semester progresses, records show that multiple COVID-19 cases are being reported nearly every day.
KSU has faced criticism over the lack of transparency in making the public aware of the number of cases on campus. The university said last month that it was not going to notify the public of COVID-19 case totals last month, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The university said it was focused “on notifying and assisting all individuals who may be at risk on our campus,” according to the AJC.
Some students, university employees and parents were outraged at numbers not being made public, even starting a petition to make KSU release the COVID-19 numbers on campus to the public.
During the last week of August, the university backtracked and started releasing the number of reported COVID-19 cases to the public.
On KSU’s coronavirus website under FAQ is the weekly number of COVID-19 cases reported to the university.
The number on the website updated at the end of each week is only the number of cases reported for that week and not the number of cases reported in total since the start of the pandemic.
KSU’s public COVID-19 information is not as comprehensive as the University of Georgia’s, another University System of Georgia school.
UGA’s COVID-19 data displays the number of cases by week, splits the number of cases up by student, faculty and staff, and has the recovery rate, among other data made publicly available in one area.
So far, records requests and/or adding up the weekly totals each week under KSU’s coronavirus FAQ page are modes through which the public is able to see the total number of COVID-19 cases at KSU.
