News

Back-to-school testing at Fort Lewis College found four positive COVID-19 cases last week, all attributed to asymptomatic carriers, according to a news release Friday.

Three other people had inconclusive results and are being retested. The college directed all seven to self-isolate. These results come from the 827 tests that had been processed as of Friday – the college tested 1,700 students total in the past week, in addition to faculty and staff members. It’s the first week of testing in what will be a semester-long testing effort.

“We knew we would see positive cases, considering the number of people we would be testing this week,” said Jeff Dupont, associate vice president of Student Affairs, in the news release. “We were adequately prepared to isolate anyone who tested positive and support them through our case management team.”

The college and San Juan Basin Public Health are contact tracing all positive cases. SJBPH does not consider these cases to be an outbreak.

“COVID-19 is very much still circulating in our community, including in people with no symptoms,” said Liane Jollon, executive director of SJBPH, in the news release. “These results confirm how important widespread testing is to controlling the spread of the virus.”

La Plata County had 237 positive COVID cases as of Friday, an increase of five from Aug. 15 to Friday, according to SJBPH. Archuleta had three new cases over the same time period, bringing its total to 45. Colorado had 54,586 cases as of Friday, ranking 39th in the country compared to coronavirus outbreaks in other states.

FLC residents moving into on-campus housing were required to be tested and were screened for symptoms. All other students and employees were highly encouraged to get tested.

“We strongly encourage FLC students who live off-campus to take advantage of the testing opportunity that FLC is providing to further control the spread of COVID-19,” Jollon said.

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, FLC and SJBPH “strongly” advised students and employees to wear masks at all times when indoors or in centralized areas of campus, to practice frequent hand-washing, to maintain physical distance of at least 6 feet and to monitor for symptoms daily via the Fort Lewis App.

Testing will remain available for any member of the FLC community throughout the fall semester. FLC community members can visit www.fortlewis.edu/covid19testing to register for a test. Results are available within 48 to 72 hours, and support will be available for all positive cases.