It looks like Syracuse University will be reopening in the fall, relying largely on students to fill critical roles during the schools reopening.

The university plans on testing the entire student body, roughly 17,000, over a four-day period when they come back.

What You Need To Know


  • SU to test entire student body over four-day period in fall

  • Tests will be repeated two weeks later

  • University also plans to build contact tracing team of students

They will then test everyone again two weeks later, followed by random and wastewater tests.

The university also plans to train students in hopes of building a team of 30 to 50 contact tracers.

The students will be trained through the Johns Hopkins University Contact Tracing Certification program, and a full-time staff will be put in place to manage them.

The contact tracing process will begin if a student tests positive for COVID-19 and will focus on identifying the closest contacts who would be most likely to have contracted the virus.

Any students who test positive will be placed in isolation while those close contacts will be quarantined for two weeks.

The university will also use student ID cards as a way to keep track of who has been tested.