Syracuse, N.Y. -- Syracuse University is quarantining approximately 200 students who live in Ernie Davis Hall after the school’s wastewater monitoring program detected the coronavirus in water leaving the building.
The school announced the quarantine in an e-mail to students on Thursday, asking those who live in Ernie Davis Hall to return to their rooms and remain there. Those students will now be individually tested. They will be required to remain in their rooms until the test results are processed, a timeframe the school projected will take between 24 and 48 hours.
The announcement from Syracuse encouraged students not to panic. It was expected that the presence of coronavirus would be found in dorms at various points of the semester and the quarantine is part of the school’s effort to prevent a larger outbreak. This is the first time the school has quarantined a dorm this semester because of wastewater monitoring.
The density of dorms makes them areas where the virus could spread easily, making it important that cases are found and stamped out quickly.
The school has said it plans to test the wastewater in its dorms for the presence of the virus two times per week. It is monitoring all of the residence halls and some other campus buildings to identify cases. It is also using the process to monitor the amount of virus present in off-campus neighborhoods.
The system was developed with the help of SUNY Upstate, SUNY ESF and Quadrant Biosciences. The state has invested $500,000 in a pilot program that will expand its usage to communities in Albany, Newburgh and Buffalo.
The school’s announcement said it would begin room checks at 4:15 p.m. on Thursday for students living in Ernie Davis and would continue conducting them until all students were accounted for. The school said it will provide food and other necessities while students are quarantining.
The wastewater monitoring program is one of multiple layers of protection that Syracuse has put in place to try to limit potential outbreaks on campus.
School officials have said that about half of infected individuals shed the virus when going to the bathroom. The school believes the test is sensitive enough to detect one individual in a dorm who is shedding the virus.
The presence of the virus in the wastewater does not provide an immediate idea of how many students are infected. It could even be the result of the virus being shed from resolved cases.
While every college in the country is expected to deal with cases over the course of the semester, through the first two weeks, Syracuse’s reopening plan has helped it avoid the type of major outbreaks that have shut down some schools and caused substantial worries at others, including at SUNY Oneonta.
The plan has worked well enough that faculty members that began the year expressing skepticism that the college would remain open have begun to feel more optimistic.
Through Wednesday, the most recent day that data was available, the school was reporting just nine active cases, along with 29 cases in which individuals recovered.
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