Auburn University reported 109 new COVID-19 cases last week, according to data released by the University.
This is a significant decrease in new cases following two straight weeks of the University adding more than 500 cases per week.
On Tuesday, the University also released data regarding the Sentinel Testing program that it is conducting through GuideSafe.
According to that data, 329 students were randomly selected for testing, 6 of which tested positive. This equates to a 1.8% positivity rating for the week of Sept. 7 - 13.
In the previous week, 621 students were randomly selected for testing, 39 of which tested positive. That equated to a 6.4% positivity rate for the first week of September.
In a video released on Tuesday, Dr. Fred Kam, director of the Auburn University Medical Clinic, said that this week's decrease in cases was expected.
"It's always a good thing to see the number of positive cases go down," Kam said. "You can't see it behind my mask, but I'm happy. I'm cautiously optimistic."
Kam said that the decrease in cases was not because of a decrease in testing, but because of people on and off campus better adhering to social-distancing and mask guidelines.
"It didn't just go down because testing went down, it went down, again, because of all the steps that people have been taking and adhering to," Kam said.
Last week, Kam said that he expected a spike in cases following the Labor Day weekend, but this week he added that the spike may not show up until next week.
"I was expecting that these numbers were to go down this week," he said. "Again, I want to be clear that it's not going to last forever. The expectation is because of Labor Day we will see a slight spike — hopefully it's a slight spike."
Kam said that Auburn has been more fortunate than some other schools across the country.
"Other schools are not as fortunate as we are," Kam said. "Some schools are totally online; they've shut down. We have been Auburn strong and continued to be committed towards trying to make this a successful semester."
Even though the weekly increase in cases declined this week, Kam said that the University should not overreact to the good news.
"We did not overreact when the numbers were bad; we do not want to underreact when the numbers are good," he said. "We need to be consistent; we need to be committed."
Throughout the entire video, Kam stressed the importance that Auburn students and employees follow all of the University's social-distancing and mask guidelines.
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