Ithaca College Journalism '22
Swarts said if communal spread begins to occur, it will be handled on an individual basis by determining where the communal spread is happening. He encouraged people to participate in voluntary testing on campus, follow safety guidelines, stick to a small group of friends, and to hold each other accountable.
He said the college is going to continue to monitor cases through the end of the semester and address issues as they arise. He said it is important to watch for cases linked to other cases on campus which would indicate communal spread on campus and in the community.
"This is a trend that we see every year, around this time of year," Swarts said. "... When you get into the colder months and start getting people indoors and gathering that's when we started to see a spike, so I think coupled with all of that we can't change the weather, we can't change the holidays, we can't change some human behavior, so we're just trying our best now to you know mitigate that extra positive cases as we find them to make sure that there's not any further communal spread."