University dashboard reports COVID-19 numbers continue to stay low

By Shaun Chornobroff

As finals week rapidly approaches and students prepare to leave campus, Rider has continued to stave off an outbreak of positive cases on campus.

From April 19-25, Rider only had two positive cases, a stark decrease from the six cases it had the previous week and saw a decrease in isolation and quarantine numbers in the seven-day span, according to the university’s online dashboard.

There drop in cases also came with abundant drop off in surveillance testing at the school, with there only being 183 tests given out through the surveillance program from April 19-25. A small number when juxtaposed with the 300 tests in the week that preceded it.

The school’s Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Planning and Secretary to the board, Debbie Stassola, believes the decrease in testing is due to many of the spring sports seasons coming to an end.

“Those surveillance testing numbers include not only what we do in our random weekly surveillance testing, but also include the surveillance testing we do with athletic teams,” Stassola explained. “Some teams have ended their seasons, so they need to be tested at the level frequency at which they were tested while they were in either the practice or competition portion of their seasons.”

Stassola also said that the testing numbers may continue to decrease as Rider’s surveillance program comes to an end in the upcoming week.

As of April 27, Rider has had 131 positive cases in the spring semester and 217 positive cases over the course of the school year.

With the school year coming towards its conclusion, Stassola is content with how the student body has handled the pandemic.

“I think overall, we’ve done a pretty good job as a community because our numbers have been relatively low,” Stassola said. “I think that people have been for the most part have been following protocol, and I think that has contributed well to our numbers.”