ALISA OPPENHEIMER
News Editor
We’ve made it through our ninth week of classes and Fredonia has kept up the diligent work in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
In the past month, Fredonia was required to increase surveillance testing per SUNY guidance on Sept. 4.
With this, pool testing went from every other week, to every week and now to every day. The capacity of random students selected has increased drastically compared to where we started, and it continues to increase weekly.
Fredonia went from testing 64 students in one week, to 324 students, to 375, to 1,100 students selected this week for testing.
Within these past weeks we’ve seen great progress.
As of Oct. 14, Fredonia conducted a total of 1,529 pool tests with a return of only two positive cases.
Now, with over 1,000 students being tested weekly, it’s likely we may see the number of positive cases increase.
In his past weekly email updates, President Kolison often discussed the results of that week’s pool testing, but this week he more-so emphasized the greatness in scale of the number of people selected for pool testing, and made it clear that he will discuss the results early in the coming week.
“This week we saw our largest pool testing. As you may recall, we started conducting about 80 tests a week, made our way to about 150 a week, then about 350 a week, and this week we ramped up to 1,100 student tests, plus another 180 faculty and staff that will be tested tomorrow,” he said.
He also expressed his pride in the efforts made by his students.
“Your support and participation, and the logistics to make all of this happen, are simply remarkable. Our local newspaper described us this way: ‘SUNY Fredonia has been a model campus.’ I couldn’t be more proud,” said Kolison.
According to Fredonia’s COVID-19 Dashboard, in the most recent 14-day period of Oct. 10 to Oct. 23, there are a total of 10 estimated positive cases.
In reinforcing the health and safety of our campus-community, Fredonia has continued to increase the number of students being tested, stayed consistent in sanitation efforts and more recently, has implemented their newly established schedule for weekly pool testing.
The schedule was created to ensure that all individuals of the campus-community are included in testing, giving more accurate results of our COVID status as a whole.
To find the schedule, students can go to https://www.fredonia.edu/returning/weekly-testing-schedule.
As we slowly reach the end of the semester, it’s important that every member of the campus-community take all the proper steps in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
For more information regarding COVID-19 on our campus, students can utilize the following resources: