WestConn to ramp up COVID testing of students
DANBURY — Western Connecticut State University plans to increase the frequency of coronavirus testing for students when they return next week.
All spring athletes and residential students will be required to be tested for the virus weekly, with testing available for commuter students, too, spokesman Paul Steinmetz said.
Residential students also must receive a negative PCR test seven days before returning to campus ahead of the start of classes on Monday. They will again be tested five days after they arrive.
“They’re all coming in from the community,” Steinmetz said. “We’re trying to catch any possible COVID infections as soon as we can.”
All classes will be held virtually for the first week. After that, a mix of virtual and in- person classes will be held.
Students are asked to stay in their dorm rooms for the first week. Grab- and- go meals will be available. But students will not be forced to stay on campus and may go to work if necessary.
“It’s not like they are fenced in,” Steinmetz said. “But we’re asking them to do as much as possible to protect themselves and others during that first week.”
The university fared better in the fall than Danbury and some other colleges in the state when it came to COVID outbreaks. Throughout the semester, WestConn had 22 cases among residential students and staff and 29 among commuter students.
Officials have not found that on- campus cases have spread to the wider community.
“Our infection rates were lower than the surrounding community,” Steinmetz said. “So it [ students returning] will have, we think, no deleterious effect on the community. What we worry about is infections coming in from the community to the campus.”
In Danbury, COVID numbers have fallen slightly since a post- holiday spike, Mayor Joe Cavo said.
“We’re hoping it stays in a downward trend,” he said. “The numbers are still not where we want them to be. We’re still in the red zone and looking forward to not having holiday events where people are gathering.”
Less than 800 students will live on campus this semester, compared to about 830 in the fall, Steinmetz said. It’s typical for fewer students to live on campus in the spring, but more students than normal have taken the semester off due to COVID, he said.
In the fall semester, the university tested a quarter of residential students once a week, which meant these students were tested monthly. Commuter students needed to seek tests off campus. But the state health department recommended a ramp up of testing, Steinmetz said.
Tests will not be available on campus for faculty and staff. Commuter students were for the most part able to find testing in the community last semester, Steinmetz said.
“We did hear some concerns from some students, but I believe the resources in the community, although they were tight at times, were generally sufficient for most of our students, and faculty and staff, as well.”
The Community Health Center in Danbury runs a testing site on the Westside Campus, while the Greater Danbury Community Health Center has one at 12 Boughton St.
Griffin Health administers the tests for WestConn and will send five swabbers initially. In the beginning of the fall, only two swabbers were available and students waited in three hour lines, Steinmetz said. Students will schedule appointments.
“We expect lines to be much shorter,” he said.
The state has not told the university whether it will be involved in administering vaccines to those eligible.
“We think that students for the most part will be among the last to be vaccinated, just because most are young and healthy,” Steinmetz said.
But precautions and testing frequency could be reduced later, depending on the vaccine rollout.
“It may be eased or lessened depending on conditions in the state and guidance from the state,” he said.