Several Siouxland colleges are dealing with COVID-19 infections | Local news
Under the yellow alert, Dordt’s Rec Center and Hulst Library are closed, class sizes may be restricted, attendance may be restricted and social distancing practiced at gatherings, co-curricular practices and events could be canceled, and precautions will be heightened at residence halls. Instruction will be offered online to students who are in isolation or quarantine.
At Northwestern, students who live within a 250-mile radius of the college will be asked to return home if they test positive, the college wrote on its website in July. Masks are required on campus except at residence halls.
Sioux County, home to both Dordt and Northwestern, is currently dealing with an outbreak of the virus. In the past two weeks, 16.2 percent of all coronavirus tests in Sioux County came back positive — the fifth highest percentage in the state. The county’s two-week positive percentage has risen considerably during the past week.
In absolute terms, 172 people have tested positive for the virus in Sioux County during the past two weeks, and around 244 are currently thought to have active infections, according to Iowa Department of Public Health data.
Buena Vista University will begin offering COVID-19 testing to students through a TestIowa testing site sometime next week. Buena Vista County was once one of the hardest-hit counties in the state, but lately its COVID-19 numbers have been brought under control. Roughly 50 people in the county are thought to have active infections, and its positive percentage is low, at only 4.3 percent.
