App State announced seven new COVID-19 clusters and 19 new cases associated with the App State football team in a campus-wide email Thursday. This is the largest announcement of clusters yet. 

The clusters are as follows:

• 5 cases in active isolation in White Residence Hall.
• 6 cases in active isolation in Eggers Residence Hall.
• 5 total cases in Summit Residence Hall. Four of these are in active isolation and one is past isolation.
• 5 cases in the Living Learning Center. Four of these cases are in active isolation and one is past isolation.
• 5 cases associated with App State volleyball. Four of these cases are in active isolation and one is past isolation.
• 8 cases associated with Kappa Alpha fraternity. Five of these are in active isolation and three are past isolation.
• 14 cases associated with Delta Sigma Phi fraternity. Seven of these cases are in active isolation and seven are past isolation.

Of the cases associated with the football team, eight are staff members and 11 are students. The release states that these cases are associated with the active cluster on the football team, which took more than 20 players out of last weekend’s game. App State Athletics announced today that its Oct. 7 match against Louisiana is postponed.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services defines a cluster as a minimum of five cases with illness onsets or initial positive results within a 14-day period and plausible epidemiologic linkage between cases.

Public health staff members are identifying and reaching out to close contacts of  those who have tested positive, according to the release. A close contact is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as someone who has been within 6 feet of an infected person for more than 15 minutes.

App State’s next COVID-19 pop-up testing event will take place Saturday at Rivers Street Parking Deck from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. No insurance or appointment is needed, but an AppCard is.

The announcement comes as App State reaches 675 cumulative cases across students, faculty and subcontractors. Currently, 181 students and 4 employees are currently in isolation with COVID-19.

Visualization by Moss Brennan.