An unavoidable part of dorming is COVID and therefore COVID-19 tracking. CoVerified is the set of COVID-19 monitoring tools chosen by Salem State University in order to track the spread of COVID-19 on campus. The platform uses a daily symptom report paired with weekly tests to roughly understand the movement of COVID through campus. The school also hosts a COVID monitoring dashboard that displays the number of tests performed in the last week, positive on-campus results, and the percentage of positive individuals in the school population.
The first and most present motivation to stay up to date on CoVerified is first the health and safety of the individual. The ability to get tested weekly and conveniently is an underrated privilege. Second is the necessity of CoVerified to navigate comfortably around campus; CoVerified is needed to go class, communal campus areas like the library, and is shown at the door to your residence hall. An individual cannot really be denied entry into their dorm however the final major motivation is the ability to sign in guests. If both the guest and host are cleared on CoVerified even commuters can be signed into a dorm. If a student does not test within the week Residence Life is alerted and contacts them through email. This policy that seems to be mirrored and even escalated on some campuses with a student publication from YU reporting,” Yeshiva University is temporarily banning students from campus for missing three consecutive COVID-19 tests in its COVID-19 Monitoring Program…”
Is is anyone dissatisfied? From my personal experience, no! The questions buzzing around right now are “How will this progress as the conditions of the pandemic change?”, “ With more in person classes and general contact on the rise will we deal with this differently?”, and “…will vaccines matter?”This is a unique part of dorming this year that seems to becoming commonplace. Everyone views COVID tracking as an important and necessary part of going to college during a pandemic and is doing their part!
