Wastewater Testing Update

NJIT Community Members,

Last week, we announced that our wastewater testing program yielded a positive result for trace amounts of COVID-19 in the sample taken from Cypress Hall. After receiving that result, NJIT immediately notified all residents of that facility, converted them to remote-only coursework, and instructed them to quarantine in place. NJIT conducted 266 individual COVID-19 swab tests on Cypress Hall residents the next day. No cases of COVID-19 have been discovered in the 263 results that have been received by the university to date. Additionally, we have received 17 negative test results from students who went home rather than quarantine in Cypress Hall. We still are awaiting results for two students who required re-testing due to their original test samples leaking, as well as results from another 15 students who went home to quarantine and complete their required testing. Those students chose not to quarantine in residence, as we requested, and will not be permitted on campus until a negative test result is provided to NJIT. In addition, the two students who were re-tested and are awaiting results remain in isolation. The remainder of the residents of Cypress Hall are no longer required to quarantine.

It is important to note that the positive wastewater testing result for the residence hall may have been triggered by a student who is a Cypress Hall resident but was identified as positive through our individual testing program and began quarantine before the wastewater result was received. That student has since tested negative.

Our expectation always has been that some NJIT community members will test positive for COVID-19, so the goal of our multi-pronged testing program is to identify and isolate those who may be asymptomatic, as quickly as possible, thereby reducing the chance of exposure to others on campus. NJIT’s comprehensive COVID testing strategy includes tests for individuals prior to their return to campus, ongoing surveillance testing of those on campus, surface testing, air testing, and wastewater testing. This approach gives us the best opportunity to quickly detect the virus within our campus community and prevent its spread. So, while we would prefer no cases of COVID on our campus, we are pleased to see that, thus far, our testing program has been successful in meeting the goal of identifying cases before the virus spreads on campus.

Our most critical priority continues to be the health and wellness of NJIT’s community members, and we remain confident in the safety of our facilities for students, faculty, and staff. For additional information about NJIT’s pandemic protocols and the latest results of our testing efforts, please visit NJIT.edu/pandemicrecovery.

Thank you and stay well.

Andrew P. Christ, PE

Senior Vice President

Real Estate Development and Capital Operations