COVID-19
cases at colleges are on the rise, and schools across the Hudson
Valley are keeping a close watch on the numbers.
Purchase College officials
say they have protocols in case they see a big spike in cases, but fortunately
that's not the case at this point.
School
officials tell News 12 they currently have 18 active cases among students and
three employee cases. They say if any
program, or the campus as a whole, reaches a 5% positivity, they
will issue a pause.
That's not a lot compared to
numbers from Cornell University, in upstate Ithaca, where they have more than
900 cases among students.
School officials there say a
very high percentage of them are omicron variant
cases in fully vaccinated people.
On Tuesday, the school shut down the campus and
made final exams virtual.
News
12 spoke with Cornell students who are from Westchester who are now home and
under quarantine. "I'm like wearing a mask
around my house…definitely being careful because I know some girls tested
positive after they got home," says sophomore Maya Sauthoff, of
Pleasantville.
Anabel Maldonado, of Bronxville, is a
sorority sister of Sauthoff, and she tells News 12 they're disappointed in the
school's slow response.
The sophomores live in a sorority house with 35 girls, with an
increasing number of them testing positive by the day.
They're now anxiously awaiting COVID-19 test results. "All
Cornell students are a little disappointed and confused as to why we didn't do
arrival testing, because that's where this all came from—Thanksgiving,"
Maldonado says.
In a statement, a Cornell representative told News 12:
"Currently we have more than 850 students in isolation, and reserve
capacity at local hotels to accommodate current quarantine needs for our
community. We are working in partnership with our county's health department to
coordinate on isolation protocols and assist students who have received a
positive test. …We are communicating this to our student community and trust
that they will continue to follow public health guidance.”