SU to ramp up COVID-19 contact tracing, testing for spring semester

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Syracuse University plans to double its COVID-19 surveillance testing capacity and expand its contact tracing efforts for the spring semester.

The university has hired full-time employees to support staff at the Barnes Center at The Arch and is expanding the current part-time student contact tracing team from 30 students to 50, Vice Chancellor Mike Haynie said in an SU News release Friday.

“Robust surveillance testing will be central to sustaining in-person teaching and learning in the spring and is an important strategy supporting the objective of keeping our campus community safe,” he said.

SU will test students for COVID-19 every seven days and may restrict access to campus facilities and technology for students who do not participate in the mandatory testing, Haynie said.

Faculty and staff teaching in-person classes and engaging with students should be tested every 14 days, he said. Employees who are accessing campus but not regularly engaging with students should be tested every 30 days.

SU will also establish a team of volunteer contact tracers who will be called into service as needed, a program similar to those of several of SU’s peer institutions, Haynie said.

“These enhancements will allow us to identify, trace and isolate potential COVID-19 exposures more efficiently and effectively, ultimately enhancing our ability to quickly undercut potential spread of the virus on our campus,” he said.

Students who lived on campus in the fall and will not be returning to campus for the spring semester can schedule a time to retrieve any belongings left behind between Jan. 22 and 24, before students begin moving in. Students and their families must follow New York’s travel advisory guidelines when coming to campus, Haynie said.