BLOOMINGTON — Classes begin at Indiana University on Monday.
Students are being told if they do not comply with the safety measures asked of them, they will be asked to complete their classes online or elsewhere.
The Mayor of Bloomington issued an emergency order aimed at limiting the number of people at public gatherings in the city. This comes after school administrators were made aware of an off-campus party of more than 50 people last week.
As classes begin Monday, IU leaders are working to make students aware of the rules and how seriously they need to be followed. The executive order bu the mayor meant to help with public health and enforcement as students return to class. The order says gatherings must be limited to 15 people or less, and those in attendance must wear face coverings and maintain social distancing.
The school will also start random testing Monday; they will be selecting 10,000-12,000 students, faculty, and staff randomly to test for COVID-19 each week. They plan to eventually increase that to 15,000 a day, with the hope of being able to check students one to two times a week and staff quite regularly so they can pick up nearly every infection that occurs and get those necessary into quarantine quickly.
"But only the antigen test allows us to have an answer in 20 to 30 minutes which is what we need to know which is how you are right now and can we let you move into a dorm," Aaron Carrol, vice-chair of health policy at the IU School of Medicine, said. "It is likely we will have some false negatives we own that we expect that we will not be perfect, but more is better than good when it comes to broad-based public health."
Because of the possibility of false-positive, the university says its possible students will be told to self-quarantine when they are possibly not infected. But, they would instead err on the side of caution than risk the spread to the wider campus population.
The university provost says university police and the Bloomington Police Department are increasing patrols and will be stopping to educate students who are not complying with the rules.
