Lake Erie College has 3 confirmed virus cases

In its second week of classes, Lake Erie College has confirmed three positive COVID-19.

Lake Erie President Brian Posler did not reveal if the cases were strictly students, faculty or staff, but he said he does not believe the confirmed cases came from the college’s campus situated in Painesville.

“We don’t know if any communities spread on our campus,” Posler said. “We think all of the cases were contracted elsewhere. We have not had anyone who has contracted this from one of the confirmed cases.”

Posler said the college received assistance to structure protocol when classes began.

“We continue to work very closely with our partners at University Hospitals,” Posler said. “They’ve been instrumentally helpful as we’ve developed our protocols, as well as working with the Lake County Health Department. They’ve been very responsive helping us sign off on our plans and helping us develop these plans that we have in place.”

Posler said that strict protocols were placed for people before they arrive on campus, including community members completing surveys, and he believes they are working.

“We’ve been planning for months to prepare to reopen,” he said. “We’re asking every individual to do the prescreening questions on a survey on their phone. The protocols have been really well thought out, and they seem to be working as intended.”

Posler said protocols include safe social distancing, masking and intense cleaning of surfaces.

“We’re feeling fairly confident that we’ve got good plans in place to help us do the best that we can given the situation,” he said. “We think all those pieces together have really helped.”

Posler said he feels that it would be helpful to the Lake Erie College community if the region would have more testing available.

“Testing remains scarce in this region,” he said. “We have a lot of students that would benefit from regular testing.”

Posler said because of little available testing, community members must wait until they show symptoms before they are tested.

“Right now it’s more reactive where if students either experience a symptom or get a red screen for another reason, then we could move forward and get them tested,” he said. “In an ideal world, we would test every student upon arrival and then test some set of students very regularly throughout the semester to track and monitor any spread.”

While observing how the country and state continue to react to the COVID-19 pandemic, Posler said the college will continue to take into consideration plans regarding in-class learning sessions.

“We continue to monitor what happens with the state of Ohio, what happens with Lake County as well as the percentage of cases and things that turn up on our campus,” Posler said. “Our intention right now is, as long as possible, we want to continue with our in-course delivery.”

Posler said that the possibility of changing from in-class to remote learning will be made possible because of proper preparation from faculty.

“We prepared all of our faculty to be very flexible for this fall,” he said. “Should we get to the point where we have rampant community spread and we have a number of cases on campus, we are prepared to pivot to be fully online for the remainder of the semester.”

With classes underway, Posler said he is satisfied with the way the college has been handling the situation.

“I can’t say enough how pleased I am with how hard everyone worked since summer,” he said. “I couldn’t be more proud of the effort that the faculty and staff put into getting ready.”