By Brady Cote
@brady.cote
As this semester continues to fly by, the campus must stay strong in these final four weeks that the students and faculty spend on Alden Street.
To keep the number of cases and close contacts low, Christine Johnston, Assistant Director of Alcohol and Other Drug Education and Health Promotion says that the campus needs to continue to follow all COVID guidelines.
“These last few weeks, everyone is getting tired of following the rules and that is what is really challenging, so we just need everyone to keep it up. It’s long, these last few weeks, and we know everyone’s tired of wearing the masks and distancing, but we just need to keep going.”
With some student-athletes finally being able to compete in their respective sports, it is of high importance that they show up for testing twice a week for their scheduled appointments.
“It’s what they need if they want to compete, that is the agreement that we made with the other schools that we’re playing against. If they are coming in for their tests, then we appreciate that.”
Johnston applauds the Springfield College community for staying strong throughout the semester by following the COVID guidelines thus far.
“So many of our students are doing the right thing, they’re doing their distancing, wearing their masks, making sure to come to get tested at their scheduled times, and we appreciate it because that’s all we can do.”
This semester was taken with a better approach and the campus has been better prepared after getting an idea of how things would be for housing students during this pandemic. Thankfully, Springfield College was able to clear the Lakeside dormitory and use it strictly for housing close contacts, as well as those who tested positive for the virus.
“The ability to house everyone who needs housing is something that we have done well this semester. That was one of the things that was a limiting factor in the Fall.”
Within the past week, there has been a total of 19 positive cases, reflecting a positivity rate of 0.75 percent.
“We’re managing it, and I believe that we’re doing better than the general community because our positivity rate is much lower, but we can always drop that even further.”
Only four weeks away from the end of the semester, Springfield has the goal of lowering the cases week-by-week. Although it may seem like a difficult task, it can be done when the whole Springfield College community works together to help curb the spread of the virus.
Photo: Springfield College