Oswego State President Deborah Stanley announced on Monday, Sept. 7, that Funnelle Hall will now be used to house additional students that need to be quarantined on campus due to COVID-19.
The residence hall was recently renovated in the spring 2020 semester and was “slated to be offline this semester,” according to a press release from Wayne Westervelt, Oswego State’s chief communications officer.
All 208 rooms in the building will be used as single rooms to provide a substantial increase of quarantine housing. Each floor in Funnelle also has eight “total privacy restrooms” for one person at a time, “making it ideal for students in quarantine,” Westervelt said.
“The college decided over the summer to hold off on placing anyone in Funnelle Hall just in case the renovations were not completed on time,” Westervelt said. “Once the fall semester started, the college made the decision to keep it vacant and use Funnelle for quarantine if necessary.”
Lonis Hall, on the east side of campus, was originally the only designated quarantine area for on-campus students in the Oswego Forward Plan that was most recently updated on Sept. 4. In the Mackin Complex, Moreland Hall is also being used for students that need to be in campus-supported isolation rooms.
Isolation rooms are for those who test positive for COVID-19, while quarantine rooms are for anyone who may have been in close contact with those who have tested positive.
Lonis Hall has 65 rooms, and as of Sept. 10, there were 64 students in on-campus quarantine, which is roughly 98.5% of the rooms. All of the rooms are single-person rooms.
The announcement of the additional quarantine housing came after an “aggressive” three weeks of baseline testing, according to Stanley in an email sent on the morning of Sept. 7. As of Thursday, the school reported 78 positive tests for COVID-19 out of 6,290 tests, a 1.2% positive COVID-19 rate.
“Despite the rise in cases this weekend, we have a very low infection rate and are faring better than many other campuses across the state and around the nation at this time,” Stanley said. “Testing helps us identify COVID-19 on our campus so that we can begin care for those who test positive, and take swift action to limit the spread to others.”
The Oswegonian file photo from 2018
