COVID in Context: Ahead of match-up, how do mask-optional Texas A&M and mask-mandated Arkansas compare in COVID?

BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) - The Texas A&M Aggies and the Arkansas Razorbacks will meet at AT&T Stadium in Arlington for the Southwest Classic on Saturday.

Both teams will contend with challenges on the field while each school contends with challenges in the pandemic.

At Arkansas, masks are mandated in the majority of indoor campus situations. At Texas A&M, masks are optional.

For both schools, COVID-19 vaccines are not required for students and staff, but each school has them available on campus. Each school also has an incentive program to encourage vaccination.

A few metrics are comparable when determining how COVID-19 mitigation protocols are working on each campus.

The positivity rate of all campus testing is calculated weekly at each campus:

Active cases are tracked daily for Texas A&M and as a weekly average for Arkansas. Using that data, this graph can be made:

However, Arkansas’s campus population is just half what Texas A&M’s is. Using the respective numbers of students and staff on each campus, the following can be calculated:

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