As our nation’s young people begin to head back into the world of academia, there are renewed concerns that their close proximity to one another, (and the hormones of our young adults lives), would make it incredibly difficult to keep the coronavirus pandemic from worsening on college campuses.
This has proved true, and in stark numbers. At the University of Alabama alone there are at least 1,200 students who have already tested positive for COVID-19.
In New York State, the COVID-19 epidemic’s first US epicenter, Governor Andrew Cuomo is concerned about a college outbreak, and is taking extreme action to prevent it from spreading.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo deployed a so-called medical SWAT team to the State University of New York College at Oneonta to help contain a surge in coronavirus cases that developed at the school.
The state team will include 71 contact tracers and eight case investigators, Cuomo announced Sunday.
In an effort to control the outbreak, New York state will also open three free, rapid-testing sites in the city of Oneonta that will be open to all city residents by appointment.
The cases of the virus began to emerge last week when the university officially welcomed undergraduate students back for the fall semester. Since then, SUNY Oneonta’s total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 has reached 105, representing 3% of the faculty, staff and students who are on campus or using campus facilities, according to university officials.
Cuomo had come under fire earlier during the pandemic for his controversial decision to send some COVID-19 patients into care at nursing homes when the elderly were largely considered to be an “at-risk” demographic.
