Dear Trinity College Community Members,<\/p>\n
This week, as more Trinity students have made their way home and others have begun adjusting to life on an increasingly quiet campus, and as we have transitioned to remote learning and a mostly remote work environment, our emergency management team has been adapting its work to an ever-changing reality.<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, Trinity saw its first known confirmation of a COVID-19 case within our community\u2014with someone who hasn\u2019t been on campus in more than a week. It wasn\u2019t necessarily surprising, given the spread of the pandemic, but it was distressing news for the community. Meanwhile, we\u2019ve watched with some anxiety as peers at other institutions experienced confirmed cases of the virus on their campuses and undertook the necessary and difficult process of tracing all known contacts and isolating those individuals, attempting to quell fear as they did.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve put in place similar plans at Trinity. A rapid response team has been poised to act in the event of a COVID-19 case on campus. Plans call for notifying public health officials and relevant administrators on campus, conducting an exposure risk assessment with the public health department, and taking all measures necessary to isolate and care for those who are sick or who\u2019ve been exposed to the virus. And we would communicate with the community early and often, as appropriate.<\/p>\n
Collectively, our team has decades of experience managing Trinity and other institutions through a wide variety of emergencies and crises. This situation, though, is different than those others in many ways, not the least of which are the uncertainties around how long it will last and how acute the crisis could become. What we know is that our emergency response plans must be much more dynamic than they are for other situations, as guidance from local, state, and federal authorities changes frequently and as conditions in our area continue to evolve. The state of Connecticut is now reporting to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)\u00a0widespread community transmission of the virus<\/a>. And testing, while much more prevalent than it used to be, still isn\u2019t readily available for all. Health officials have been frequently adjusting their testing criteria to prioritize populations of greatest need and best respond to growing demand with a limited supply. That means, then, that a presumptive case on our campus might never be confirmed\u2014simply because a person may not qualify for a test.<\/p>\n So, where does that leave us in terms of Trinity\u2019s ability to keep our promises to you\u2014to do all we can to keep our community healthy and safe, and to communicate clearly and openly with you throughout this crisis? And what should you do, as members of the campus community (whether or not you\u2019re on campus right now), to keep yourself and others from getting sick?<\/p>\n First, to the issue of how we manage illness on our campus:<\/b>\u00a0Our focus is on containing the virus as much as possible, because holding it at bay isn\u2019t realistic. Our campus is designed for maximum interaction, not social distancing, and so our ability to isolate those who become ill is limited. That\u2019s why keeping as many people as we can off campus\u2014out of residence halls, classrooms, and communal spaces\u2014is such a high priority. Our emergency response work on campus will be about caring for those who become sick and doing so in ways that keep the illness as contained as possible. We will continue to follow guidance from local and state public health officials and the CDC, and we\u2019ll notify you if changes in that guidance require us to change how we\u2019re responding.<\/p>\n Second, regarding communications:<\/b>\u00a0As testing for COVID-19 increases, we are likely to learn of more confirmed cases within our community\u2014both on campus and off. At the same time, there will be members of our community who may have the virus but never get tested, either because they can\u2019t get a test or because they don\u2019t ever feel sick enough to seek medical attention. We will inform the community when we learn of a first confirmed case on our campus, where currently we are housing and caring for about 200 students who have not been able to return home.<\/p>\n But going forward, we won\u2019t be sending out broad notifications to the community about every confirmed case or every suspected case. We will assess the need to communicate broadly on a case-by-case basis, following public health officials\u2019 guidance on any necessary notifications to aid in containing the spread of the virus. And we will update our\u00a0college advisories website<\/a>\u00a0with the current number of known COVID-19 cases in the Trinity community, as we receive confirmation from public health officials or the individuals who test positive.<\/p>\n Third, and perhaps most important, what can you do to keep yourselves and others healthy?<\/b><\/p>\n