January 22, 2020

Dear students, faculty, and staff,

I write to you with our weekly update from the COVID-19 Risk Assessment Group. We have highlighted particularly essential points in yellow.

New cases at Reed

Since our last update, we have identified no new confirmed COVID-19 cases at Reed. We continue to report all Reed-associated COVID-19 cases online within 24 hours of confirmation, found in the "Total Cases" section of the dashboard.

Weekly surveillance testing

Regular weekly surveillance testing for the Spring 2021 semester will officially begin this Monday, January 25. For the duration of the semester, saliva testing will take place in Gym II of the Sports Center from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM Monday through Friday. Individuals asked to participate will be emailed a link to a signup sheet today.

Students who will be accessing campus throughout the semester are to complete two tests each week, no less than 72 hours apart. Any faculty, staff, and affiliates who will be interacting with others in person on campus this semester should sign up for and complete one test each week. For more details on the surveillance testing plan for this semester, please visit our COVID-19 testing webpage here.

If you have questions about this plan, or feel you should be added to or removed from the surveillance testing pool, please contact us at coronavirusquestions@reed.edu.

Accessing surveillance testing results

Saliva testing results are usually back within 36—48 hours. Participants can view and print their results using the lab's portal, which can be accessed by visiting client.predictivelabs.com and logging in with your Reed email address and password.

If it is your first time accessing the portal, click "Forgot Password" and request a password reset using your Reed email address. You will receive an email with a link to reset your password; please note that it can take up to 30 minutes for this email to be delivered. Once you have used this link, you cannot access the portal using it again; after setting your password, please access the portal at client.predictivelabs.com.  

If you have questions or challenges with accessing your test results, please reach out to us at coronavirusquestions@reed.edu for assistance.

Start of term reminders

As we prepare for the start of another academic term, community members are reminded to complete a few important items prior to the start of classes this Monday, January 25:

• All community members are required to complete the COVID-19 Policies And Prevention Training, updated for the Spring 2021 semester. Please complete this training as soon as possible, if you have not done so already.
• Students are required to review and sign the appropriate Acknowledgement of COVID-19 Risks and Prevention Expectations form. Students living on campus can sign the form in IRIS here, while students living off campus can sign the form in IRIS here.

Vaccine

Oregon is distributing the COVID-19 vaccine in accordance with the state's vaccine sequencing. At this time, the state has authorized the vaccine for those in Phase 1A, and this includes Reed's community safety staff and HCC staff. Many of these staff have already received or scheduled the first dose of vaccine.

At this time, we wish to notify all Reed staff and faculty that Kaiser has opened a vaccine waitlist. The waitlist is for Kaiser members and non-members. When you sign up for the waitlist, you will designate if you are eligible under Phase 1A, Phase 1B, or future phases. Staff and faculty who are 65 or older qualify under Phase 1B and should join the waitlist at their earliest convenience.

Oregon has administered 50% of its allotted vaccination doses, and has vaccinated 4.6% of its population, ranking 19th and 20th respectively in the U.S., compared to vaccination in other state populations. Currently, the top age group vaccinated in Oregon is 30-39-year-olds.

State and National Trends

Multnomah County, where Reed College resides, remains in the "Extreme Risk" category, based on local COVID-19 activity data. You can review the risk categories and associated limitations on the State of Oregon's COVID-19 webpage here.

With the most recently released data, Oregon reports a slight decline in daily cases and a sharp decline in positive tests, both indicators of improving COVID-19 activity. A vast majority of confirmed cases in Oregon continue to be sporadic cases, or those who do not have known exposure to another case or outbreak, indicating continued, widespread community transmission.

The B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in the United Kingdom, has been officially detected in Oregon's populous Multnomah County. Due to the variant's ability to spread quickly, its presence is expected to impact virus surge in the next 6-8 weeks.

Please help us keep Reed a safe place to live, work, and study by participating in surveillance testing, the weekly risk assessment survey, and, for those both local and remote, all other essential response measures on and off campus.

If you have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to the COVID-19 Risk Assessment Group at coronavirusquestions@reed.edu.

Sincerely,

Madison Riethman, MPH, CPH
COVID-19 Response Coordinator and Health Project Manager
Health & Counseling Services
Reporting on behalf of the COVID-19 Risk Assessment Group

PS: As a reminder, you can track all our COVID-19 communications to members of the Reed Community here.