How many University of Bristol students have tested positive for coronavirus?
Last update: 30th November
UPDATE: 4th December. Now that the UK Government has mandated teaching should move online for the rest of the term, I am going to take a break updating this site (though I'll still keep the table updated every week so we don't lose the data). The slowing down of the official UoB infection rates in the last couple of weeks will enable Hugh and his fellow mercenaries to say that their plan worked (it hasn't; many 2nd and 3rd years with symptoms are just not bothering to get tested, and that's not the point anyway). Never let it be forgotten that SMT were willing to throw us all under a bus in order to collect all that lovely rent money.
Hello! Are you interested in learning how many students at the University of Bristol have tested positive for coronavirus so far this academic year? Why, that's easy... the University are publishing their own data about that every weekday.
What's that you say? The University has changed how it is presenting the data in order to make the situation look less bad than it actually is? Surely not. Such a prestigious institution wouldn't do something as underhand and disingenuous as that. They are an academic institution! They must be in favour of such basic information being in the public domain so that people can make their own judgement about how well they are handling the outbreak. You must have made a mistake. Hold on while I go and check myself...
[pause]
Well, hot diggity you're right! I'm astonished. One of the "best" universities in the country is posting data about a pandemic that could potentially mislead the public. Why would they be doing that? Surely it's not simply because they are embarrassed to admit that, as of 30 November 2020,
1 in 11.7
of their students not studying wholly online have tested positive? I bet they are using such worrying data to reflect on their decision to host teaching on-campus as we speak!
But, just in case they're not, I really think that someone ought to make sure that the data remains publicly available. Fortunately - for the moment at least - the university is still releasing daily figures on their website. The last cumulative figure for which I have a screengrab is October 27th (see image below). The table underneath simply adds the new cases each weekday to keep a running total.
I'll continue to add the data here for as long as the University makes the daily data available. Unless, you know, I die from covid because my employer is forcing me to teach on campus.
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Source: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/coronavirus/statistics/ (28th Oct 2020)
*How the '1 in X' figure is calculated:
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According to the University's website, they have 'almost 28,000 students'. However, many students have choosen to study entirely online this year, so the number of students actually on campus is lower. According to data not publicly available (but accessible by all university staff), there are currently 28,907 students registered (so I don't know where the 'almost 28,000' comes from), with 3924 of them studying entirely online.
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That means 24983 are involved in 'blended learning' on campus and online.
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The '1 in X' figure is thus calculated by dividing 24983 by the cumulative positive tests.
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This is probably a small over-estimation of the ratio, as some students studying online only may have reported positive tests to the University.
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However, I am also aware of a number of 2nd and 3rd year undergraduates who are very likely positive but have decided it's not worth getting tested, so it probably all evens out in the end. I do want to make clear that my final number is an estimation though.
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The figure also ignores the possibility that any individual student might receive a second positive test.