COVID-19 Campus Update and Saturday Testing Available

I wanted to send a brief update regarding our campus COVID-19 management.

We have experienced a slight uptick of positive cases over the last few days: 7 students and 1 non-student. The campus COVID-19 management team worked diligently to get these positive cases in isolation and in partnership with the Contact Tracing Collaborative promptly identified close contacts for quarantine. Several of our positive students are close contacts from the same cluster, had already been quarantined, and test results later identified them as positive for COVID-19 as well. We do believe that we have contained this uptick and that policy modifications are not needed at this time.

Throughout the week, several news sources have reported that cases are rising in Massachusetts, particularly among individuals under age 30. As of yesterday, 32 Massachusetts cities and towns have been designated high-risk, with communities on Cape Cod seeing an alarming trend of increasing cases.

Given the CoVerified scheduling issue at the start of the week and the recent uptick, we have partnered with In-House Physicians to offer COVID-19 testing appointments for tomorrow, Saturday, March 27 from 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. for faculty, staff, and students in the testing protocol. Please schedule an appointment in advance on the CoVerified App.

We are reminded by this recent uptick of cases on campus that we are not out of the woods yet. As long as we adhere to wearing masks, social distancing, limiting travel, and other safety precautions, we believe we can continue to keep our community safe.

Stay safe and be well,

Dean Zack

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