According to Melissa Kaczmarek, director of communications at SUNY New Paltz, the college learned on Wednesday, August 26 that an on-campus resident student has tested positive for COVID-19. The student had taken a voluntary, on-campus test with Enzo Labs last week and tested positive.
Both the student and their residence hall roommate are in quarantine. The Student Health Service will monitor the student’s health, and the student will remain in quarantine until cleared by Student Health Service (generally 14 days post-exposure or ten days from onset of symptoms, per CDC guidelines).
According to the College’s Testing and Quarantine procedure for fall 2020, contact tracers have been deployed to interview the student about where they have been and with whom they have been in contact. Contact tracers will notify other individuals as appropriate, and will also notify facilities management if the student has been in common spaces on campus within the last seven days.
All of the faculty teaching courses in which students testing positive for COVID-19 are enrolled will be notified, whether those courses are in-person, remote or hybrid.
Students and instructors who share in-person courses with those who test positive (again, if any) will be notified but will not be required to quarantine unless contact tracers confirm that they have been in close contact with the student (ten minutes or more within six feet) without wearing a mask.
This is in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance with current SUNY, state and CDC guidance that quarantine is necessary only in cases when a person has been without a mask and has spent more than ten minutes within six feet of an infected person.
The Student Health Service has notified state and local health departments, per state requirements.
I hope everyone remembers that we will have cases of COVID that will come up. The important thing to realize that if a case is confirmed and it is isolated, all of the precautionary tactics re working and this is the start of getting things back on track. We will see COVID cases, but as long as we are prepared to deal with it, things can move on. COVID is not going away in the short term and am glad to see the COVID action plans in place. Good Luck everyone and lets try and have a somewhat productive end to 2020.