Next week Lake Region State College will welcome faculty back from the semester break for two days of in-service training (January 7th and 8th).
The college will follow the same COVID safe protocols this spring that we employed during fall semester to include mask wearing, distancing, and a prohibition on close contact situations during the work day. COVID-safe protocols outside the workplace are strongly encouraged as well. LRSC continues to stress the importance of testing as a tool to ensure we can quickly isolate and quarantine in our effort to slow the spread. The spirit of cooperation we enjoyed last fall was second to none!
Community testing is now available every Wednesday from 9 am to 11 am inside the former Leevers south grocery store. It is expected that all resident hall students, student athletes, faculty, and staff (who have face to face interactions with students, employees, or community members) to be tested for COVID-19 between January 5thand January 15th. The community testing events on Wednesday January 6th and Wednesday January 13th affords the perfect opportunity. Once again, HR will be tracking the testing results and helped by Housing and Athletics. A copy, a pdf, or a screen shot of your test result is all they need.
All participants who registered and tested in the fall can test without registering a second time. If you have never registered for COVID testing in ND, please do so in advance of testing by going to the following link: https://testreg.nd.gov/
LRSC is also considering the adoption of new quarantine guidelines that are allowed by our public health office and the CDC. Under this reduced quarantine protocol, close contacts would be required to quarantine for 10 days (instead of a 14 days). In addition, the quarantine period can be reduced for asymptomatic people to 7 days with a negative COVID-19 PCR test. If we get the same proactive cooperation to testing that we saw last fall from faculty, staff, and students, Dr. Darling has agreed to adopt this new quarantine protocol. A decision on this will be made in mid to late January.
LRSC's safety guidelines can be found in the LRSC COVID-19 Preparedness and Response protocol under the COVID-19 menu tab on our website. We will continue with these precautions in order to protect each other and keep our faculty, staff, students, and visitors safe from COVID-19 and to help slow the spread. Having a successful spring semester will require everyone to exhibit self-discipline, act responsibly, and have respect for all who live, learn, and work at Lake Region State College.
COVID-19 cases and positivity rates have been in significant decline locally but are still higher than they were when we started the fall semester. Now is the time to be ever more vigilant to ensure infection rates do not begin to go up again. With the rollout of two new vaccines, there is even more optimism and hope on the horizon. Perhaps this spring’s testing and response protocol will be the last.
Please have a safe and healthy new year.