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TAMU, Brazos Co. Health Dist. give update on COVID-19 on campus

“Right now, in the classroom, the students are behaving beautifully. It feels like things are going well.”

Texas A&M officials say their students and staff are following all safety protocols when it comes to COVID-19. 

A few administrators from the university joined the Brazos County Health Department to give some insight on COVID-19 reporting on campus and beyond.

There was a big focus on teamwork between both entities.

“We are gonna be making this in collaboration," Dr. Seth Sullivan from the health department said. "We have to understand whats happening in our community, what’s happening in our hospitals, whats happening in our schools.”

Things continue to run smoothly in Bryan-College Station schools; with just 15 positive cases in both Bryan and College Station's school districts combined. 

Despite early reports of cases, things seem just as optimistic at Texas A&M's flagship campus. 

With the university’s new COVID-19 case dashboard, the public can see there’s been a lot of testing on campus. 

The health district and A&M are hoping for people to continue to get tested, and they agree there’s no positivity rate threshold that would move things completely online. 

“We are not, at this point planning to go all or nothing," said Texas A&M Provost and Executive Vice President Dr. Carol Fierke. "We have a very detailed plan of phasing out pieces and we’ll follow that plan depending on what the data says.”

The school will look at factors like where cases are happening and if students are affected by cases to make those decisions. 

While the university says they can’t control what students do off campus, Dr. Fierke said, “right now, in the classroom, the students are behaving beautifully. It feels like things are going well.”

If students living on campus test positive,  they are either moved to quarantine from shared housing, quarantine in their housing if they have a single dorm or they have the option to go back home to their families. 

With all these moves in mind Texas A&M officials are staying positive. 

“We are not about are we going to close, we are about steps to stay open," said Dr. Martha Dannenbaum, Physician and Director of Student Health Services. "Aggies want that experience and we’ll get through this.”

Texas A&M officials are still deciding whether or not campus activities will happen, but they say they’ll look “very different” if they do. 

So far, yell practice has been moved online.

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