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After a weekend of tailgating, Florida State University’s coronavirus cases rose to over 1, 200.
Since Aug. 2, 2020, the university uses a Covid-19 dashboard to indicate the rise in cases each week. Within this past week, student cases rose from 839 to 1,230 and employee cases rose from 14 to 20. These do not include the potential number of cases that could come from this past weekend of tailgating.
On Monday, FSU began their random testing program. From now, until the end of fall semester, random faculty, staff, and students will be selected to be tested for the virus according to a news release.
The random sample will be pulled from each of the three cohorts the university deems as risk factors: undergraduate students living off campus, students in residence halls and graduate students, staff, and faculty participating in campus activities.
According to FSU, undergraduate students living off campus are the largest concern and the least influenced by campus procedures. Members of the other two groups are less of a problem since both must adhere to campus guidelines and safety regulations, however, students on campus are still fairly high risk due to living in such close proximity with another.
Those who are selected for random testing must make an appointment no later than Tuesday, and must complete their testing no later than Friday of that week. Testing for each group will increase as the risk for that specific group increases.
Despite this new policy, Darien Bolden Jr., a senior music education student, feels that FSU still is not doing enough to prevent the rise in cases.
“I definitely don’t believe that FSU is doing enough to protect its students. I feel as if they are being selfish by not mandating that certain activities and events be cancelled, especially football games which are known to be large gatherings,” said Bolden. “I don’t feel that testing is the issue. The spreading is the issue.”
FSU failed to comment about the recent spike in cases, but FSU does have rules regarding indoor and outdoor gatherings.
According to the FSU Event Guidelines, all indoor and outdoor gatherings can have a maximum of 10 people at each event and no event can last more than two hours. Students are also required to wear a face covering at outside events where social distancing cannot be done.
Though Bolden is disappointed at FSU’s efforts to stop the virus, he believes that FAMU is doing a great job.
“I believe FAMU has done a great job in taking preventative measures to stop the spread of the virus by canceling sports and limiting the amount of activity and events on campus,” Bolden said. “I would highly encourage FAMU to have all students tested as there may be a possibility that students may be spreading the virus and don’t know it because they are asymptomatic.”
To learn more about what FSU is doing to help control the spread of Covid-19, you can visit https://news.fsu.edu/tag/coronavirus/.