SUNY wrapped up testing 152,788 students and staff for COVID-19 on Tuesday, before they left for Thanksgiving break.

“This was a big challenge,” SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras said, making the announcement at SUNY Schenectady County Community College. “By putting this mandate in, we didn’t know exactly how it was going to go, being the largest system of public higher education in the nation.”

Out of the students tested, 956 tests came back positive or 0.63%. 

The students that tested positive are working with their local health departments and around 880 students are currently quarantined on SUNY campuses across the state.

“Students have often been criticized for being the vectors of spread of the virus,” Malatras said. “This goes to show you that students can step up and do the right thing. Students all across the SUNY system by and large, have done the right thing. They kept the positivity rate down. All tests are a reflection of what is going on on campus and when it comes to behavior and compliance our students did a great job.”

Each student was tested using a self-administered, saliva swab diagnostic test that was developed by SUNY Upstate Medical University.

Preetish Arjune, a sophomore at SUNY Schenectady County Community College said although testing was mandated, he is glad students are being safe.  

“I wasn’t concerned about getting COVID tested or anything like that because safety is on us,” Arjune explained.

SUNY Students will continue to learn remotely after the Thanksgiving break and will not return for the spring semester until February 1.

With students gone, Chancellor Malatras says this also frees up Upstate Medical to test the surrounding communities.

“We now have the capacity to help other communities with testing, schools, and others that may need help as their going into the different micro-zones the state has established,” Malatras said. “So we’ll be providing some of that testing to them as well.”

Every SUNY student will have to quarantine for five-seven days before returning to school in the spring and will have to get tested once they arrive on campus.