New London — In a recent video message, Connecticut College Dean of Students Victor Arcelus told students that after a “successful and collective effort” this past fall, the focus now is on bringing everybody back safely to complete another successful semester.

“You’ll be returning at a time when COVID-19 levels are higher than they were in August,” he said. “Therefore the on-boarding process we put in place will be even more important to help limit the spread of COVID-19 on campus.”

Colleges and universities across the region are welcoming, or preparing to welcome, students back to campus for the spring semester, at a time when the overall number of COVID-19 cases is higher in the community than at the start of the school year. College and university officials said they plan to continue the safety measures they started last fall, while making some adjustments.

Conn College, for example, plans to hold on-boarding meetings with students to review the data from the fall so they can better understand how the virus spread on campus and what they should do to prevent similar situations from happening. Mitchell College and Eastern Connecticut State University plan to increase testing to once a week.

Connecticut College

Arcelus said Conn will continue the protocols implemented in the fall, including testing students twice a week and testing employees once or twice a week, depending on how often they come to campus. He said the college was able to respond to spikes in cases last fall and bring them down quickly through effective contact tracing.

“I think that students were very cooperative and engaged in trying to keep the campus safe and trying to keep New London and our region safe in terms of not getting the virus and spreading the virus,” he said of the fall semester.

Students will return to the New London campus for the spring semester on Feb. 4 and 5 and were expected to self-isolate for the two weeks prior to coming to campus, he said. They were required to take a pre-arrival COVID-19 test, either by getting tested in their home community or by requesting a testing kit be mailed to them. Once they arrive, they are expected to immediately report to the campus testing center to show their negative test and get tested again.

They will then head to their rooms and quarantine until they have four negative on-campus tests, which usually takes about 13 days, he said. During that period, students can leave their room to go to the health center, get packages at the mail room, and can be outside by themselves or with a maximum of two friends, as long as mask wearing and social distancing are followed.

Classes will be taught in a mix of remote and hybrid-format classes, Arcelus said. About 1,350 students will come the campus for the semester, including some students who will be renting properties in New London County or commuting from home. About 300 students will be participating in the semester remotely.

While Conn had travel restrictions in place, particularly as cases increased in the fall, Arcelus said the college plans to very clearly communicate travel restrictions due to the higher number of cases in the community.

According to guidance provided to students, when the campus is in “Alert Level 3 - Orange,” travel off campus is not allowed and students will have to request approval if it’s urgent to travel. Students living off campus should only go between the campus and their residence.

Even in the lower “Alert Level 2 - Yellow” and “Alert Level 1 - Green,” travel off campus in the local area is “highly discouraged due to the high levels of COVID-19 in the area,” and is restricted to only essential business, though the college said the rule may be revisited if COVID-19 levels in the community decrease. Under alert levels 2 and 3, students are not allowed to travel beyond New London County, unless they request approval due to "extenuating circumstances."  

According to the college’s online data, since Aug. 17, 2020, 48,753 COVID-19 tests were performed with 67 positive student testings and 46 positive employee tests.

Arcelus said the campus had two spikes in cases during the fall semester: one in late September/early October and another in late October/early November. He said the college was able to quickly bring down the spikes through contact tracing. He said students were very transparent about their interactions with peers, which allowed the campus to identify students who needed to quarantine.

In 87% of positive cases among students, the students were already in quarantine when they tested positive, he said.

“That’s emblematic of very good contact tracing because those students weren’t continuing to spread the virus around campus,” Arcelus said.

He said the college does not have evidence of spread through classroom activity, athletic activity or contact with surfaces. By and large, it was students who became sick after had they already been on campus — for example, by eating at a restaurant, attending a local gym, or through a family visit — or initially as they were coming to campus through travel, and then it was spread through social interactions.

UConn campuses

At the University of Connecticut’s Avery Point commuter campus in Groton, all students taking in-person classes or regularly working or conducting research on campus this semester have to show they tested negative for COVID-19 prior to the start of in-person classes this week, according to UConn spokeswoman Stephanie Reitz. The university offered free, mail-in COVID-19 PCR tests or students could get their own test.

At Avery Point, about 301 students plan to take at least one in-person class, while 164 were planning to take online-only courses.

Students at UConn’s non-residential campuses, including Avery Point, are instructed to consult with their doctor if they develop COVID-19 symptoms, get tested and then report the results to the Student Affairs Office.

At UConn's Storrs and Stamford campuses, a testing process, which required students to take a COVID-19 test at home and again when they arrived on campus but before they moved into their residence halls, caught 76 positive cases among college students, who frequently are asymptomatic, according to a Jan. 19 news release from the university. Students also were slated to quarantine for their first two weeks on campus.

The university further is conducting “pooled saliva testing” of the students weekly, with follow-up testing of each student if a pool tests positive. “Students will also be invited for frequent surveillance testing, and have access to rapid-result testing if they develop symptoms at other times that could indicate COVID,” the university added in the release. The university also will be testing wastewater to detect the presence of COVID-19.

According to data from the university, over the fall semester, the university saw 484 positive cases among Storrs residential students; 403 among Storrs students living off campus; 20 among Stamford residential students; five among Stamford commuter students; and one commuter student each at Waterbury and Avery Point.

Data released Friday through the university's COVID-19 dashboard shows 39 cumulative cases for the spring semester among Storrs residential students; 11 cases among Storrs students living off campus and 1 case among Stamford residential students.

Mitchell College and Eastern Connecticut State University

Over the period between Sept. 15, 2020, and Jan. 4, 2021, 2,150 tests were administered to Mitchell College students and staff, with 26 tests being positive and 2,124 negative, according to the college. Mitchell College said in a statement that the “campus community did a good job following protocols in the fall and kept positive cases to a minimum.”

“Anyone living, learning or working on campus must ... observe standard safety protocols, including wearing masks/face coverings everywhere on campus, frequent handwashing/hand sanitizing, social distancing a minimum of six feet and covering coughs and sneezes,” the college added.

While the college, based in New London, did random testing in the fall, it is now requiring anyone living, studying or working on campus to be tested once a week, at the recommendation of the state Department of Public Health due to higher community spread this winter.

At Mitchell, all classes are being held remotely until Feb. 8, when regular classes — taught in a mix of in-person, hybrid and remote instruction — resume for the college’s 319 resident students and 239 commuters.

Mitchell students returning to campus had to self-quarantine at home for the two weeks before returning to campus and show a negative COVID-19 test taken within seven days before their return.

Resident students moved to campus, at staggered time slots, from Jan. 16 to 24, and have to stay on campus and follow a quarantine period until Feb. 8. During the quarantine period, the students should only socialize with their roommates and suitemates and take “grab and go” dining. Commuter students also have to follow the self-quarantine and pre-test protocols before returning to campus on Feb. 8.

At Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, students returned to campus last week, bringing proof of a negative COVID-test taken within the past two weeks, said Director of University Relations Edward H. Osborn. They were retested once they arrived and began a “limited quarantine” this week where they could still go to class and the book store, pick up takeout meals, and access financial aid and other services.

In the fall, the university implemented safeguards, including requiring everyone to wear a face mask at all times on campus, except in dorm rooms and private offices, adding hand sanitizing units and signs, reducing classroom capacity, making most meetings and most student activities virtual, increasing daily cleaning, and testing 25% of residential students each week.

For this semester, the university will continue those measures, while increasing testing to once a week for all resident students and athletes and offering the option to commuting students taking classes on campus. About 65% of classes are being taught in person, such as labs, or in a hybrid format, compared to about 60% last semester. A total of 4,017 undergraduates are enrolled for the spring semester, including 3,272 full-time students and 1,578 full-time students are living on campus.

“We were encouraged by the diligence of students, faculty and staff this past fall,” Osborn said. “Our weekly positivity rate was consistently below the state average, we were able to get to Thanksgiving as planned without pivoting to online instruction, and we had no incidence of COVID cases due to classroom exposure."

According to the university’s data portal, since classes started in the fall, the university conducted 4,882 random tests, with 98 positive tests among resident students. Fifty commuter students also self-reported positive test results.

Coast Guard Academy 

The Coast Guard Academy in New London also has increased COVID-19 testing and will test cadets twice a week, The Day reported in an article last week. The cadets, who came to campus in early January, will start in-person classes on Monday. The Coast Guard Academy's vaccination efforts and plans were outlined in the article.

k.drelich@theday.com