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There are no new coronavirus cases among students quarantining on the eighth floor of Day Hall, a Syracuse University official confirmed Monday evening.

SU placed the eighth floor of Day Hall under “precautionary quarantine” on Sunday after three residents tested positive for COVID-19. The university required all of the floor’s residents to receive testing Sunday afternoon at a station on the Quad before returning to their dorm rooms.

Students can now leave their rooms and resume their normal activities, Vice Chancellor Mike Haynie said in an SU News release.

“(Students) quickly returned to their rooms, underwent testing and complied with and followed the direction of our public health experts,” Haynie said. “It’s yet another reminder that our students want to be here and will take the necessary steps to make that goal achievable.”

SU required students living on the other floors of Day Hall to take part in pooled saliva testing, Haynie said during a virtual press conference earlier Monday afternoon. The university is continuing to encourage the students to participate in the testing as a precautionary measure.

The university discovered the positive cases in Day Hall after SU’s wastewater testing program identified traces of COVID-19 in the building, Haynie said. The wastewater testing program has previously identified traces of the virus in Ernie Davis Hall and Sadler Hall, but no students in those dorms tested positive after the university performed immediate testing.

Many students who have contracted the virus at SU were placed in quarantine before they tested positive, Haynie said.

“(Students testing positive while in quarantine) is representative of a system of surveillance that is working well,” he said. “The contact tracing process works such that close contacts were identified, put into quarantine and tested.”

Sunday marked the first time SU has placed a dorm on lockdown for confirmed COVID-19 cases among residents. The university has seen an uptick in COVID-19 cases among students since Labor Day weekend. SU reported 5 cases on Monday among students in central New York and 31 total active cases among SU students and employees in central New York.

Despite the recent increase in cases, Haynie said expecting the number of cases at SU to remain in the single digits throughout the semester would have been “unrealistic.”

“I remain optimistic given where we’re at today,” Haynie said. “(But) we are not going to go out and celebrate what I would say to date has been a success on campus because we know it could all change tomorrow.”

Published on September 21, 2020 at 7:24 pm

Contact Maggie: mehicks@syr.edu | @maggie_hickss