Cuomo Sends "Swat Team" To SUNY Oneonta For Covid Outbreak

Unfortunately, I think for kids in kindergarten to college this is going to be the reality of the 2020-2021 school year. Start, then stop, then start, then everyone home for remote learning ... then tries to open again ... and have another coronavirus outbreak and shut everything down again.

Schools around the state and the country are seeing this daily. Once there are large groups of people, even with social distancing and masks, the virus spreads quickly.

Governor Cuomo just sent a "Swat Team" to SUNY Oneonta because of a large outbreak with as many as 105 students in one cluster. That represents positive tests for about 3% of the students and faculty on campus just one week into the semester. The school did require students to quarantine at home for 7-14 days before coming to campus, but how do you enforce that? Also, the students weren't tested at all before returning to campus. Now everyone is getting tested.

Now before you get visions of police swat teams dressed in black and carrying machine guns, that's not what we're talking about. Instead, the governor's "SWAT Team" consists of 71 contact tracers, eight case investigators and three, free rapid-testing sites. The rapid-testing sites will return a result within 15 minutes.

In addition to the "SWAT Team" being deployed, SUNY Oneonta has shut down in-person classes, and school activities for two weeks to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Five students have been suspended. Three campus organizations have also been suspended. Once students got back to college they acted like college students and wanted to see their friends and have parties last week. Well, in today's day and age that might not be the smartest thing. In addition, it's being reported by The Daily Gazzette that four students at UAlbany have been suspended for allegedly violating the safety protocols.

As other schools open around the state hopefully they will use this as a cautionary tale and their opening will go a little smoother.