Quarantine and COVID Testing

Happy New Year, T’21s and T’22s!

We hope you had an enjoyable and relaxing break. As we embark on a new term, we write today to provide a few reminders about quarantine and COVID testing protocols. These practices will be key to safeguarding the health of our community, especially following travel that may have occurred during break. 

Below is the updated Dartmouth guidance that Vincent Mack emailed to you on December 17. We thank each of you for exercising caution and adhering to quarantine protocols. 

FIRST 10 DAYS IN THE AREA: PREVENTION AND BASELINE TESTING

• All students living in Tuck residence halls on campus must quarantine in their residence for 10 days upon arrival to campus – including return from winter break – regardless of whether or not they have traveled outside of New England. 
• All graduate and professional school students living in off-campus residences, including Sachem Village, South Street, and North Park apartments and arriving from outside New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, must quarantine in their residence for 10 days after arrival and follow the COVID-19 travel and quarantine requirements for their state of residence in the Upper Valley.
•  For students living both on and off campus, the 10-day quarantine period can be shortened by taking a molecular (PCR-based) test on or after day seven as long as they continue to be symptom free and their test result is negative. They may not end their quarantine in fewer than 10 days unless they have received a negative test result.
• All graduate and professional school students arriving on campus or to the Upper Valley will make Leverone Field House their first stop for arrival testing. Students will test again on days three and seven after they arrive (or as close as possible to these days based on test availability). Students should schedule their test  in advance to ensure availability.

 For this first week of the Winter 2021 term, January 4 – 8, testing will be required three times. Thereafter, testing frequency will change to twice per week. Please see the December 2020 – January 2021 testing schedule. To ensure shorter lines and proper staffing please make sure to reserve your timeslot for testing here: https://health-clinics.dartmouth.edu/ 

Please note that returning from winter break falls into the “arrival quarantine” category and is different than travel quarantine during the term. Greater details about arrival quarantine practices are on the Health & Safety page of the Tuck COVID website. You’ll notice that the guidance about movement during quarantine – picking up meals, no group gatherings, solo outdoor exercise – is similar to what we did at the beginning of the Fall 2020 term. 

As always, additional Dartmouth COVID information can be found here: https://covid.dartmouth.edu/. 

We look forward to seeing you soon! 

Joe and Sally  

 

---

Dartmouth has formed a high-level task force to plan for and manage possible disruptions related to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, monitor federal and state recommendations, implement guidance, and communicate with our community.

More information on COVID-19