By: Ravyn Malvino
With the holidays approaching, many Adelphi students will be traveling home to see family and friends this week. However, no one wants the virus to travel with them. The Adelphi administration is working to ensure that students and their families remain safe upon their arrival home while also preparing for their return in the spring.
“As the semester comes to a close, we realize many members of our community will be traveling home,” said Nicole Gaudino MS, AGNP-C, Adelphi’s director of health services. “In an effort to ensure that travel is safe for all, and to help prevent community spread of COVID-19, Adelphi is performing mandatory coronavirus testing for all our residential students prior to their departure from campus in addition to random surveillance testing of our commuter population.”
Residential students will be completing their free mandatory testing via Vault Health.
The Adelphi administration is aware of the risks of sending students home for the holidays and are taking precautions.
“Recognizing many people would be traveling home, I released a Travel Safety communication, which addresses steps individuals can take to stay safe,” said Gaudino. In this advisory, Gaudino encourages the Adelphi community to get their annual flu vaccinations, continue practicing social distancing, proper hygiene measures and mask use, in addition to self-quarantining at the first sign of illness to prevent transmission to others.
Students should take precautions on the day of travel by reducing the number of stops on their trip and consulting with a healthcare professional if they’re feeling sick or think they may have been exposed to the virus. Take safety precautions during travel, especially if using any public transportation, and use a disinfecting wipe to clean any touchable surfaces in the vehicle in which you’re traveling. When traveling domestically, private transportation by yourself or with family members is the safest option. If you’re riding in a car with others outside of your household, wear a mask and sit in the backseat if someone else is driving.
“Furthermore, retesting once home with travel completed is strongly recommended,” said Gaudino. “I encourage anyone with questions in regards to quarantine, travel restrictions, or COVID-related concerns to email me at healthandwellness@adelphi.edu.”
As we all know, after Thanksgiving we’ll not be returning to campus; rather all classes will meet remotely. As of now, the plan is that we can return to campus for the spring semester beginning classes on January 26, 2021.
“As noted in our recent residential life communication, Important Steps and Deadlines: Returning to Residence Halls in Spring 2021, we will once again require all residential students to provide recent negative test results prior to move-in this spring,” said Gaudino.
Before returning to campus, students will need to have a negative Covid-19 test result from a test taken at home within 72 hours of their arrival in New York, quarantine for at least three days upon arrival in New York, and take another Covid-19 test on their fourth day of quarantine with a negative result allowing them to leave quarantine.
“Similar to this semester, all Adelphi Covid-19 policies and procedures will remain in effect in spring 2021, including daily health monitoring on the AU2Go app, social distancing, hygiene and mask protocols, as well as our regular surveillance testing programs of both commuters and residential students,” said Gaudino.
Gaudino added: “I encourage our Adelphi community to hang in there, continue to make good decisions, and by doing so, have a pleasant and happy -- even if non-traditional -- holiday season.”