Updated 3/10/2020, 2:36pm. This article was updated to include four additional study abroad students that were confirmed to have arrived from South Korea on March 9, and are being quarantined in addition to the 22 students, according to an update of the precautionary quarantine initiative webpage by Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, Rick Gatteau.
Twenty-six students from State University of New York (SUNY) study abroad programs are undergoing mandatory quarantine for the coronavirus at Stony Brook University’s Southampton campus, school officials confirmed in a March 8 email to The Statesman.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo named the Southampton campus a location for potential quarantine in a press briefing on Saturday, when he also declared a state of emergency in New York.
“As part of the SUNY family, we welcomed 22 study abroad students to the Stony Brook Southampton campus last night,” Stony Brook officials wrote in the email. “The students have been screened and show zero symptoms of COVID-19.”
There are currently 105 people in New York with the coronavirus disease, COVID-19, including one in Suffolk County, according to Cuomo in a Sunday press briefing.
Suffolk County Executive, Steve Bellone, confirmed on Twitter Sunday afternoon that “the [COVID-19] patient is a male, in his early 40’s, is currently hospitalized and in isolation.”
Eighteen SUNY study abroad students are undergoing the same 14-day precautionary quarantine at SUNY College at Brockport, Director of Communications John Follaco wrote in an email to The Statesman. All the students held at Brockport are currently asymptomatic.
SUNY University at Buffalo was also prepared to host quarantined study abroad students but none were ultimately sent there, according to reports by The Buffalo News.
According to a news briefing on the Stony Brook University Southampton website, the students are being kept isolated from the rest of the campus in individual rooms, with no more than three students to a suite. The students are undergoing mandatory medical surveillance for both COVID-19 and unrelated conditions.
“As a preventative measure, they are undergoing this 14-day precautionary quarantine period, as would any traveler returning from Italy,” Stony Brook University Officials wrote in the email. “We have taken measures to ensure these students are provided with every resource needed to make their precautionary quarantine period at Stony Brook Southampton as comfortable as possible.”
If any of the quarantined students are diagnosed with COVID-19, emergency medical services will take the patients to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital or other medical facilities.
Clarification, 3/9/20, 1:05 p.m.: A previous version of this article stated that emergancy medical services will take the patients to Southampton Hospital. The full name of the hospital is Stony Brook Southampton Hospital.
