SUNY Prepares to COVID Test Students Before Thanksgiving

College kids who want to go home for Thanksgiving will have to test negative for the coronavirus before they can leave their State University of New York home.

The SUNY system says it will test all students the coronavirus prior to the Thanksgiving break in hopes of preventing community spread as students fan across the country.

State University of New York Chancellor Jim Malatras told The Associated Press that the system’s 64 colleges and universities must come up with plans by November 5 to test about 140,000 students within 10 days before Thanksgiving break.

Students who come back with a negative result will be able to head home while anyone testing positive will have to quarantine for 14 days.

The majority of the screening is to be done through saliva testing.

SUNY already had plans for remote learning for the rest of the fall semester following the Thanksgiving break.

Malatras says there are plans in the works for pre-screening for COVID before the start of the spring semester.