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Five days after Syracuse University first announced an emerging cluster of coronavirus cases on campus, the university confirmed no new cases of the coronavirus among students in central New York on Sunday. 

SU is currently monitoring 86 active cases in central New York, the highest number of infections since in-person classes resumed on Aug. 24. At least 67 of those cases are directly connected to at least one party at an apartment complex on Walnut Avenue, where the cluster started.

The university first announced the cluster on Tuesday morning, with cases on campus rising sharply in the following days. Here’s a breakdown of how the cluster started and what the university’s plans are moving forward:

How it started

Experts define a cluster as a concentration of coronavirus cases in the same area at the same time.

This cluster—SU’s first since resuming in-person classes—likely began when at least one SU student traveled to Binghamton, which New York state has deemed a coronavirus hotspot, university officials have said. Under SU’s public health guidelines, students are asked to remain in the central New York area for the duration of the semester.

The infected student or students brought the virus back to SU, where it spread during at least one party at an apartment complex on Walnut Avenue. The university has not specified which apartment complex hosted the party, but the 505 on Walnut’s management sent a statement to residents on Tuesday saying their building was not the source of the cluster.

After confirming the cluster, SU asked all students who attended parties on Walnut Avenue over the previous weekend to receive testing at the Carrier Dome. SU reported new cases in the double digits every day between Tuesday and Saturday, but confirmed no new cases on Sunday—the first time it has done so since Oct. 1.

As of Sunday, 220 SU students were in quarantine. It is unclear how many of the students are quarantining in university housing.

Onondaga County announced Tuesday that it was monitoring two emerging clusters of cases, including the one at SU. The second cluster is at a local manufacturing plant.

SU’s response

To mitigate the virus’s spread on campus, the university suspended all in-person student activities on Tuesday evening with the exception of classes and intercollegiate athletics. SU also amended its public health guidelines to limit gatherings from a maximum of 25 students to five or fewer. Both of those guidelines remain in place as SU enters this week.

Yiwei He | Design Editor

The Barnes Center at The Arch and all of SU’s satellite gyms also closed in response to the cluster.

Under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s guidance for reopening schools, colleges and universities that report 100 positive tests within a two-week period must pause in-person instruction and limit on-campus activities for at least 14 days. SU confirmed 80 new cases within the 14-day period that ended on Friday at 4 p.m., falling short of the state limit by 20, Vice Chancellor Mike Haynie said in a campus-wide email Friday.

As it fell short of the state maximum, SU will continue in-person classes this coming week. SU would have to confirm 90 more positive tests by Oct. 23 to trigger an order from the state to suspend in-person classes.

Going forward

As the university receives more data over the next few days, officials will determine if it is safe to resume in-person student activities or reopen gyms.

SU is “cautiously optimistic” that it has limited the spread of the virus beyond the group of students associated with the Walnut Avenue party, Haynie said in a press conference Thursday. Most of the students involved were largely associated with one another, which prevented the virus from spreading rapidly to other parts of the campus community, Haynie said.

The university has said that the majority of the infected students live in off-campus housing.

SU also announced that the Department of Public Safety will more strictly enforce social distancing off campus. Some residents of the University Hill neighborhood have said that DPS did not immediately respond to reports of social distancing violations in the area.

Published on October 11, 2020 at 11:17 pm

Contact Mira: mlberenb@syr.edu