ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a new rule Thursday requiring New York’s public and private colleges to transition to remote learning for two weeks if 100 kids or more are found with positive COVID-19 tests.
“We have colleges that are reopening. We’re seeing around the country situations where colleges reopen and then have an outbreak of cases,” the third-term Democrat told reporters during a morning conference call with reporters.
“We’re going to set a threshold that says if a college has 100 cases or a number of cases equal to five percent of their population or more, whichever is less, they must go to remote learning for two weeks at which time we will reassess the situation.”
“The five percent is the population that are on-site, students and faculty. They must go to remote learning for two weeks and then we’ll reassess in consultation with the local health department,” he explained.
Colleges must report the new cases to their local health departments.
Students will be allowed to remain on campus and take their classes online should a college meet the new threshold.
Kids are attending state-run universities are required to get coronavirus tests before returning to campus, and a number of private colleges have also adopted similar policies.
“We should anticipate clusters. When you have large congregations of people, anticipate a cluster,” he added.
“You see it around the country. Be prepared for it, get ahead of it. Be prepared for it, get ahead of it.”
Meanwhile, the Empire State celebrated its 20th straight day of a positive covid-19 infection rate under one percent statewide.
DOH recorded 83,000 tests conducted, yielding a .9 percent positivity rate.
Four New Yorkers lost their lives, out of over 32,000 total presumed and confirmed deaths according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
