28 Active Cases: Marist Updates Dashboard for Spring

After one month without new information on the college’s COVID-19 dashboard, Marist updated the site on Friday. Currently, there are 28 active cases of COVID-19 –– 27 students and one employee.  Eleven are at home or off-campus, while 17 are in on-campus isolation spaces.

The college is currently at a green alert level for COVID-19 cases, meaning that “virus prevalence is low and transmission is controlled.” Executive Vice President Dr. Geoffrey Brackett told the Circle that while the primary purpose of the dashboard is to record “semester-based testing,” it also shows pre-arrival and arrival test numbers. The college has administered 929 COVID-19 tests in the spring semester. 

“Upon arrival to campus, all students had to participate in COVID-19 PCR testing the first week on campus. This testing occurred through March 7th, 2021,” the Executive Vice President’s Office reported. “The Spring 2021 dashboard displays information used to monitor the health of our campus community and inform operational decisions, as well as to comply with New York State COVID report card reporting requirements. It will be updated each weekday for the Spring 2021 semester.”

In February, New York State released new guidance regarding testing on college campuses: now, colleges that test at least 25% of their on-campus population weekly must go on pause only when “their positivity rate exceeds 5 percent during a rolling 14-day period.” Brackett said that, for Marist, this means the college would need approximately 350 positive cases on a rolling basis over two weeks before suspending in-person activities. That said, he expects the college will continue to act conservatively should spikes arise to “preserve the rhythm of the semester.” 

The college is finishing its second week of in-person instruction for the spring semester. Marist has increased its surveillance testing and will require students to get tested once every 14 days. In addition, students who are symptomatic or are considered close contacts of a positive case will be tested by medical staff at campus Health Services. 

“This cycle, 50% of the campus each week, is twice the threshold required by New York State mandatory pause guidance for colleges and universities,” the administration added. 

In addition to the Dashboard, the college is also required to submit COVID-19 data and case numbers to New York State. Updated information regarding case numbers and the number of students in quarantine can be found on the New York State Marist College COVID-19 tracker. 

According to the New York State tracker, Marist had 14 positive COVID-19 tests on Thursday, March 11, and currently has 105 students quarantined. Quarantine is different from isolation in that those who are in isolation have tested positive while those in quarantine are deemed a close contact of a positive COVID-19 case. Currently, 51 rooms on campus are being occupied for students quarantining and there are 140 rooms available for students who need to quarantine.

According to an anonymous junior, students in quarantine at Conklin Hall cannot order food from delivery services and must rely on their own food or dining hall deliveries. “You get food delivered once a day around dinner time which contains your dinner for that night and your breakfast and lunch for the next day,” the anonymous junior said. “Everybody is telling us something different and even when we ask the Marist staff questions, they are divided on answers.”