SARASOTA, Fla — “Families are needing and wanting their holiday traditions, but that is going to likely lead to the spread more,” Dr. Anne Fisher said.
Fisher is the program director of counseling and wellness and the lead COVID-19 response coordinator for New College of Florida. Right now, she and her team are preparing for students and staff who want to head home for the holidays.
“It’s going to be a tough one for everybody I think this year,” Fisher said.
To help limit the spread this Thanksgiving, New College is offering free coronavirus testing to students and staff. Staff testing will be held at the Sainer Fine Arts Campus from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
“We know our students are going to go home and will be probably interacting with family, some of whom may have vulnerabilities for COVID, so we want to try and do the best we can to allow them to feel safe and their families to feel better about them coming,” Fisher said.
Although this testing is encouraged, it’s optional. But, if students decide to return to campus after Thanksgiving, rather than finishing out the semester remotely, students and staff will be required to get tested.
“If they [students] choose to finish their work in their dorm, what we are doing is requiring students to get tested on December 2nd and 3rd,” Fisher said.
Students must obtain a negative COVID-19 test dated no more than one week prior to returning to campus. Those test results will need to be submitted to wellness@ncf.edu.
“We’ll be tracking those tests and if they don’t test or provide us a test, they would have to leave the campus over the weekend," Fisher said.
Fisher said students would have to leave campus no later than Sunday, Dec. 6, if they don't comply with the testing requirements.
The only students exempt from these requirements are those who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 12 weeks and are now symptom-free.
By requiring testing and taking other precautions, like mask-wearing and social distancing, Fisher feels this has really helped keep COVID019 numbers low on campus.
So far during this fall term, New College has only reported three students and six employees have tested positive for COVID-19. The school is expecting more cases once they complete testing this week.
“We are doing the best we can with it, I think and it’s been working fairly well,” Fisher said. “We don’t have a high positivity rate, we have a very low one, and it’s actually been lower than the community.”
Fisher says New College plans to continue the protocols well into the next semester.
“We are planning to do random testing throughout the spring term and continue as we have been in the fall,” Fisher said. “It seems to have been very helpful for us, so we are likely to do that until everybody has a readily accessible vaccine.”
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