Dear RVU Family,

Hopefully by now everyone is settling into their routine in the new academic year. We understand this is difficult to continue to work and study under these circumstances and appreciate everyone’s ongoing patience and efforts during these challenging times.  We are all in this together!

Important announcements and reminders are as follows:

• COVID-19 Stats: The most recent data from the CDC reflects a total of 4,405,932 COVID-19 cases in the U.S.  Colorado has 45,796 cases with 1,822 deaths. Utah has 39,942 cases with 293 related deaths.
• Safe Social Distancing: It is imperative that we continue to be mindful of maintaining safe social distancing of six feet and following all of the CDC preventative guidelines. These guidelines are put in place to maintain our personal safety and wellbeing as well as that of our RVU Community. Our Facilities Department has placed six-feet spaced markers in assigned waiting or staging areas for students waiting to be called in for labs. However, it continues to be noted that students occasionally need to be reminded to adhere to social distancing. Please do your part. If you see someone violating the guidelines, please gently remind them to adhere to the safety measures.
• Educational Segment: The gold standard for performing COVID-19 diagnostic testing is real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) with samples collected via a nasopharyngeal or throat swab. Recent research have demonstrated samples collected via saliva to have RT-PCR sensitivity of 84.2% and specificity of 98.9%, with demonstrated 97.5% observed agreement with nasopharyngeal/throat swab samples.  Saliva may now be considered an acceptable non-invasive alternative for COVID-19 testing and has been authorized for use by the FDA.
• COVID-19 Town Hall:  An email for the next COVID-19 Town Hall will be sent out shortly. While everyone is welcome to attend, attendance will be mandatory for all first year students.

Thank you for your engagement and your commitment to excellence as we continue to work together to Achieve New Heights in Medical Education.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Professionally yours,

The COVID-19 Response Team