In the last week (30/11-06/12) of the University’s asymptomatic screening programme for Michaelmas term, no new cases of Covid-19 were detected. Meanwhile only 9 cases were identified through the University’s symptomatic testing programme.

From a total of 2,256 testing pools across college accommodation, 1,953 pools participated in the screening programme. This means a total of 9,376 students were screened in the programme’s last week of operation this term.

The screening programme detected 10 positive pools, with all students from these pools invited for individual confirmatory tests.

However, following these individual confirmatory tests, as of December 6th, all these pools were deemed false positives and none of the students screened were found to have asymptomatic Covid-19. As such, the prevalence rate of asymptomatic Covid-19 among screened students was 0%: the only time this has happened this term.

Unlike previous weeks, the last week of the screening programme was extended to students living in private accommodation in advance of students returning home. 930 students, across 315 testing pools, in private accommodation registered to participate in the programme for the last week of its operation.

Of these 315 testing pools, 267 samples were received and processed by the testing facility, with 4 of these pooled samples being reported as ‘void’.

1 of the privately-renting testing pools initially returned positive results, but these were later found to be false positives. As such, no new cases of Covid-19 were detected for screened students in private accommodation.

While no new cases of Covid-19 were identified via the screening programme, 9 cases were detected by symptomatic testing.

This week’s figures were a slight increase from the programme’s eighth week of operations where only 6 cases (3 symptomatic and 3 asymptomatic) were detected.

The University's screening programme will be paused over the winter vacation as the risk of Covid-19 transmissions "should be mitigated by the reduction in student numbers, density and potential for interactions", a recent email to students detailed.

The email sent last week (04/12) by the leads of the screening programme continued: "We have therefore taken the decision to pause the programme over this period because of the uncertain public health benefits of continuing, as well as our limited capacity to provide staff and support services."

Although the screening programme has been paused, those staying in Cambridge beyond December 11th will still be able to access symptomatic testing throughout the vacation period.