38 of the 4,660 Cambridge students tested positive for asymptomatic COVID-19 last week

There were a total of 156 positive cases across both the symptomatic and asymptotic University testing.


New data released from the University asymptomatic screening programme has revealed that 38 students tested positive for asymptomatic COVID-19 in the week 19-25th October. There was a total of 4,660 students participating which is up from 3,675 last week as the University is now testing half of the students in every testing pool.

Last week (19-25th October) there was a 0.8 per cent positivity rate which is about one in 120 students. This is slightly down from the 0.9 per cent positivity rate the week before (12-19th October).

There were 38 positive pools and, after re-testing, 36 were found to be true positives. The false positivity rate was found to be 0.1 per cent which is one in every 951 tests.

In the University’s symptomatic testing there were 409 tests across both students and staff and 105 positive cases last week. This gives a positivity rate of 26 per cent. This is down from the week before (12-18th October) where there were 120 positive cases from the University symptomatic testing with a positivity rate of 29 per cent.

Last week there was additional focused testing in response to a cluster of cases. 117 students were tested and 12 of those tests came back positive.

Across both symptomatic and asymptomatic testing, there were a total of 154 positive cases identified by the University testing programme in this past week (19th- 25th October).

Featured image: Riana Patel, screenshots from Stay Safe Cambridge Uni