MOORHEAD — Concordia College reports 72 new COVID-19 cases this Wednesday, Sept. 9. That is up from 64 on Tuesday. 16 people are currently in isolation on campus.
"Of course we'd like the numbers to be less than that," said Roger Olson, director of risk management at Concordia.
Olson is working with the Minnesota Department of Health to track how each student got COVID-19. So far, social interaction is the main cause.
"Among friends, and among people who live together," Olson explained. "So that might be an off-campus house where four students live together, and one person tests positive and then the others become close contacts. We haven't seen any spread at all in the classrooms, we haven't seen any spread at all in the dining services."
They are enforcing some new rules this week, like not allowing visitors on campus, further limiting events, and pushing social distancing.
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"It would probably have to be tied to a curricular or coursework activity for us to allow visitors on campus," Olson added.
Some classes are still in person, but most are hybrid with many others being held only online.
For a total campus shutdown to happen like last spring, Olson said conditions would have to warrant an increase in threat level. Currently, Concordia is operating on level three threat level. The risk level would have to be at level four before they considered a shutdown.
