UPDATE: Campus raised to Level 3 day before class begins

Photo courtesy of Flyer News.

Kaitlin Lewis    
News Editor

The University of Dayton has raised campus status to “Level 3: Caution” less than 24 hours before classes begin.

The status level was announced on Sunday afternoon through a video recorded by President Spina. Level 3 indicates that the number of COVID-19 cases makes it difficult for contact tracers to indicate “a specific area for containment, isolation and remediation.”

“It is clear that several clusters of the virus have emerged among networks of students based upon activities that occurred a week or so ago that did not comply fully with our safety protocols,” Spina said.  

All in-person undergraduate classes will be conducted online for the first week, and any in-person campus activities are temporarily suspended. Spina also said he discourages students from leaving campus.

UD announced on Saturday that it will begin both targeted and random COVID-19 testing this week for all undergraduate and graduate students regardless of where they are living. Spina said both the testing program results, as well as student behavior, will impact how classes are conducted next week and beyond. 

Between today and Thursday afternoon, when the campus status was raised to Level 2, 11 new positive cases have been reported by UD. There are currently 38 active COVID-19 cases according to the university’s dashboard. 

For more information regarding the University’s plans for contact tracing, quarantining and confirmed COVID-19 cases on campus, click here.