Syracuse University will “pause” in-person classes and restrict students to their dorms if more than 100 people contract the coronavirus on campus and containing the virus is unlikely.

The university submitted its reopening plans to the New York State Department of Health for review earlier this month. The plan includes several potential responses to a COVID-19 outbreak on campus and procedures for move-out if necessary.

SU’s plan consists of five levels of shutdown procedures that vary from quarantine and isolation procedures to an immediate evacuation of campus based on the severity of the outbreak.

“What will drive us to end in-person instruction is when our capacity to identify, trace, and isolate the virus is overwhelmed. That includes, but is not necessarily limited to, our capacity for quarantine and isolation housing,” said Vice Chancellor Mike Haynie in a statement to The D.O.

The capacity of quarantine and isolation units, along with other public health capacity constraints, would be used to inform a decision to pause or entirely cancel residential instruction, Haynie said. SU currently has 200 quarantine and isolation units at the Sheraton Hotel near campus.

If less than 10 people have been exposed to COVID-19, the university will enter the first shutdown level. While university operations will remain relatively normal, students who have contracted the virus will enter isolation and those who have been exposed will quarantine at the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel & Conference Center.

The university will move to the second level when 10 to 100 students have been exposed to COVID-19. At this point, SU may quarantine certain university buildings and individual floors to prevent the spread of the virus.

If SU identifies more than 100 students who have been potentially exposed to COVID-19, the university will begin a shelter-in-place order and move all classes online until the virus has been contained.

The criteria for increasing shutdown measures becomes less concrete as SU reaches the fourth and fifth levels. SU will transition to the fourth level if an outbreak exceeds 100 cases and there is “low-confidence” in the university’s ability to identify and contain all potential cases of the virus, according to the reopening plan. In this stage, SU will move all programs online and restrict students to their dorms, floors and bathrooms.

SU will enter level five — the final stage of the shutdown — when the virus has begun to spread at a “significant rate” and there is “no realistic strategy to contain or control the situation.” At the fifth level, SU would shut down campus operations immediately and would ask students living on-campus to move out of university housing as soon as possible.

Students who live within 10 hours of Syracuse by car will have 24 hours to move out of their residence hall. Anyone who lives in parts of the United States that are more than 10 hours away from the university will have 48 hours to depart, while international students will have 72 hours to leave.

The university estimates that at level five it would take over a month to control the virus. Vice Chancellor Mike Haynie, who has spearheaded SU’s COVID-19 response, has said that SU only has 200 quarantine and isolation units to house students who contract or come in contact with the virus, according to a campus-wide email from Student Association President Justine Hastings and Vice President Ryan Golden.

Hastings and Golden in the email said they met with Haynie and other university officials to discuss SU’s decision to ask returning students to self-quarantine in New York state at their own expense. Under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s travel advisory, students entering New York from 34 states with high rates of COVID-19 infections must quarantine for 14-days before returning to SU’s campus.

First-year and incoming transfer students can quarantine in SU dorms for $1000, while returning students must choose off-campus quarantine housing at their own expense. The university has provided a selection of hotels with subsidized rates for returning students.

Haynie said that the university can’t cover quarantine-related housing or travel expenses for students due to the pandemic’s financial impact on the university, Hastings and Golden said.

Ryan Williams, vice president for enrollment services, said about 90% of SU’s CARES Act funding has already been awarded to students COVID-19 has affected financially, according to the email. Hastings and Golden said they’re disappointed by this information and will do their best to find ways to financially support students during quarantine.

Members of the Syracuse community are rightfully concerned about students returning to campus, Hastings and Golden said. While many students will have the privilege of leaving Syracuse in the event of a campus-wide outbreak, city residents will have to deal with the devastation, they said.

“We’re not saying this to scare you. We’re saying this to keep you informed and so you understand the stakes at hand,” Hastings and Golden said. “We collectively need to do the right thing, take the necessary precautions, and hold others accountable.”

SU response and reopening by The Daily Orange on Scribd

Published on July 28, 2020 at 11:36 pm

Contact Sarah: scalessa@syr.edu | @sarahalessan