*Published on November 5, 2020*
Dear Northeastern University Community,
We want to share with you an important update. Over the course of ten days, four Chartwells employees working in the Stetson East dining hall on the Boston campus have tested positive for COVID-19 at Northeastern’s Cabot Testing Center. All four individuals went into isolation immediately following their diagnoses. Any close contacts have been notified, with instructions to be tested off-campus and quarantine.
Although there is no evidence the four cases are connected, the university takes additional precautions when we see a higher than usual number of cases in a single group. One of those precautions includes a decision to temporarily close the Stetson East and Stetson West dining halls. Forty-one Chartwells team members working at those locations were instructed to get testing and sent home. Stetson East and West dining halls will reopen in the next day or two with staff who are being reassigned by Chartwells. To find other options, please see the hours of operation for our other dining halls on campus. All of our dining halls are cleaned and sanitized several times per day according to the university’s rigorous protocols.
It is important to note that the university’s contact tracing team has not identified anyone else from the university community as a close contact and there is no evidence of any student having been exposed by dining at Stetson East.
We hope this update is helpful. This represents our testing and contact tracing program functioning as it should.
As of today, Northeastern has completed close to 350,000 COVID-19 tests with a seven-day average positive test rate of 0.08%. Please visit the COVID-19 testing dashboard for the most recent numbers.
Sincerely,
Ken Henderson Chancellor and Senior Vice President for Learning