HANOVER — In light of the current surge of COVID-19 cases in the Upper Valley and around the country, Dartmouth College has delayed the return of undergraduates to campus next month, the college’s provost said in an email to students.
While students previously were slated to arrive in Hanover on Jan. 5-6, with classes beginning on Jan. 7, they are now slated to return on the weekend of Jan. 16-17, Provost Joseph Helble said. Classes still will resume — remotely at first — on Jan. 7.
The delayed return for in-person instruction will increase the time between the December holidays and the return to campus, Helble said in the email Monday.
Students will take COVID-19 tests five days before their arrival on campus. Most students will be out of quarantine by Jan. 26. Students and employees regularly on campus will be tested twice a week beginning in January.
Helble noted that case numbers have risen significantly since late October, when the college announced the initial return dates for winter term. At that point, there were approximately 55,000 new COVID-19 cases daily across the country, and there were fewer than 40 cases per 100,000 people in Grafton County, he said.
Now, there are more than 200,000 new cases in the U.S. each day and the active case count in Grafton County has climbed to more than 210 cases per 100,000. The full effect of the Thanksgiving holiday on case numbers is expected to be evident this week, he said.
Most students who were on campus this fall returned home before Thanksgiving, and the term ended recently after final exams which were taken remotely. As of Friday, Dartmouth had six active COVID-19 cases, three in students and three in employees. Seven Dartmouth community members were in quarantine and 18 in isolation.
Helble will hold a Community Conversations webcast on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. Information about the webcast is available online at https://news.dartmouth.edu/community-conversations-december-9-2020.