Central College is preparing for students to return to campus late this week, with classes starting on January 18th.

In a letter to students, President Mark Putnam urged students to quarantine as much as possible over the next several days before returning to Pella, and get tested for COVID-19 if possible before coming back. There is a no-visit policy in residence halls over the first two weeks of the semester, which won’t be lifted if case counts are high to start the spring semester.

“We will continue to focus on enhanced cleaning, hand washing, physical distancing, surveillance testing, masking, isolating, quarantining and contact tracing. We’ll also continue to work closely with the public health experts at Marion County Public Health to manage this important work,” Putnam wrote.

According to Putnam, Central finished with 160 positive cases from Aug. 24 to Dec. 2 across faculty, staff and students — with most cases in the asymptomatic or mild range, with no evidence that any cases can be traced to the 74 classrooms and labs used during the fall. This models national findings, Putnam said, which indicate that with precautions in place, classrooms and other formal campus locations are not a vector for the virus to spread.

There were 617 people in quarantine or isolation at some point over the fall semester. About 20 percent of students chose remote learning after Thanksgiving, with the remaining students preferring to continue in-person coursework.

Central is also working with Marion County Public Health to serve as a vaccination inoculation site for the county.

Read more about Central’s return to classes here: https://central.edu/health/faq/#newest