Franklin Connection - Serving Franklin County, WA

CHENEY - Eastern Washington University officials are reporting an uptick in cases of COVID-19 since instruction resumed in an online format Sept. 26.

According to the university's Risk Management website, 64 students living off-campus in town have tested positive for the disease since Sept. 6, with 41 testing positive the week of Sept. 20-26 and 13 testing positive the week of Sept. 27-Oct. 3.

Additionally over the Sept. 27-Oct.3 timeframe, one student living on-campus tested positive and five were positive who do not live in campus housing but were on campus during their infectious period.

From Sept. 20-26, two students in on-campus housing and seven who lived off campus but were on during their infectious period tested positive for the disease.

One employee has also tested positive over the Sept. 27-Oct.3 period. It's the first employee case since the July.

Students or employees who test positive are contacted by the university's response team to determine what other close contacts they may have had to initiate contact tracing and possible extra cleaning of facilities. Employees or students who test positive must self-isolate at home or in a dorm room identified for isolation. EWU has set up one of its dorms solely for isolation of COVID-19 positive students.

Employees or students testing positive must self-isolate for a minimum of 10 days after the onset of symptoms and until symptoms improve and the individual has not experienced a fever for 24 hours. If an employee or student is identified as a close contact of someone testing positive for the coronavirus they must self-isolate for a minimum of 14 days after exposure.