Mitigation Testing

 As IU students moved on to campus the week of August 11th news reports surfaced of large number of positive COVID tests at colleges nationwide.  Notre Dame moved to online classes for two weeks to curb their numbers, the University of North Carolina closed its campus completely and sent all students home and Michigan State decided not to open even though students had paid tuition bills two days before the announcement was made.  

With all of the uncertainty revolving around the return to college we had closely monitored all of the news coming out of IU these past few weeks.  Meg was so excited to return to college life and we hoped that it would be possible for her to do so this fall.  IU responded immediately to the reports out of Notre Dame and North Carolina.  In addition to all of the move-in testing that students had to undergo, IU would add mitigation testing as well.throughout the fall semester.  Meg and her roommates were chosen to take the test last week.  As expected all tested negative.

Throughout all of this I have been impressed with IU's effort to keep us informed of their plans especially with all of the changes occurring in regards to the pandemic.  We received an email on Friday letting us know that the mitigation testing from the first week had been completed and that there were an alarming rate of positive tests in fraternities and sororities.  None of us were surprised by that news.  We knew that those areas would be hardest hit by the health care crisis.  Meg had even told us the weekend before classes started that she had heard that someone in a sorority had tested positive, but that no one from her house had quarantined.  Now eight IU frats and sororities have to quarantine the entirety of their membership until September 14th and none of the rest of the houses on campus may have any type of social gathering before that date.  Hopefully, that decision will greatly reduce the amount of positive cases and keep Meg in Bloomington until Thanksgiving.