UNC Charlotte reports COVID-19 cluster, students weigh-in on positive cases

As the fall semester continues at UNC Charlotte, the university has reported a COVID-19 cluster involving students.

The university says the cluster involves 10 students who live off-campus.

From Aug. 23 through Aug. 30, 158 positive cases involving students and 16 employee cases were reported, according to the university’s dashboard. There are currently 108 on-campus active cases.

Those numbers are concerning to some students.

“I’m definitely worried, but like, I’m usually in the science department so everyone is usually pretty good about staying on top of things,” said senior Lauren Michell.

“It definitely makes me uncomfortable because I’m currently doing, like my student teaching at a middle school. And so I’m going around a lot of kids who are not able to get vaccinated and stuff so it kind of makes me feel weird because like what if I have some germs from somebody and then when I take it to the middle schoolers,” added senior Dara Kinkopf.

Last week, 1,822 tests were conducted on-campus with 42 positive cases.

Who is vaccinated? The university says 85 percent of faculty and staff, 78 percent of students living on-campus and 71 percent of students taking classes on-campus.

While masks are required inside campus buildings, when the 49ers host Duke on Friday, they wont be mandatory at the stadium. Instead, the university “wants all spectators ages 5 and up to wear masks.”

They will be required on shuttle buses.

These seniors say their first week of classes was filled with anxiety.

“It was honestly a little anxiety inducing. Yeah, just because you know I have baby and he can’t get vaccinated and I knew people weren’t vaccinated going in,” Michell said.

“I definitely felt like there weren’t enough restrictions going on sometimes because you’ve had like a lot of back to campus events and it’s been really fun, especially for like freshmen and students that are new, but there were a lot of people who weren’t wearing masks like in close proximity to and things like that, so that just kind of made me anxious,” added Kinkopf.