It’s an email that Syracuse University students dread seeing in their inbox: the automated COVID-19 random test notification that starts off with, “You are receiving this email because you have been selected to test this week.”

This testing process is part of the “Stay Safe Pledge” that all students sign when they arrive on campus, meant to ensure low rates of COVID-19 spreading during the pandemic. Nowadays, however, mandatory testing is nothing more than an annoyance and a waste of time, as the world has reopened from a two-year lull of lockdowns and restrictions.

When students came back to campus for the fall 2020 semester, there were still a lot of unknowns about COVID-19. Many businesses, stores and some universities were taking extra precautions in order to keep people safe, while still slowly reopening and increasing capacity limits. This included SU, which decided to invite all students back on campus, albeit taking mostly virtual classes.

Part of the rationale for having students and staff on campus were the extensive measures in COVID-19 monitoring, such as wastewater testing, a mask mandate and mandatory weekly testing for all students. Most people understood why these policies were enacted and were just appreciative of the fact that they got to be on campus for the school year.

But now we are approaching two years since the start of the fall 2020 semester and one year since SU mandated that all students, faculty and staff get a COVID-19 vaccine. We know a lot more about how the virus works and how the newer variants affect people.

There is no longer a need for SU to keep mandatory testing policies in place, especially with the transition to the “YELLOW” masking level last month. Younger and vaccinated people, which make up much of SU, have had fewer serious COVID-19 outcomes than older, unvaccinated people. Furthermore, the omicron variant generally causes less severe disease than other variants.

Part of the policy SU has put in place takes into account the COVID-19 statistics of Onondaga County. These numbers are also down from their height earlier in the winter, with the hospitalization seven-day average at 65 and the seven-day average deaths at 0.6, both similar to where they were a month ago. With the omicron variant being far less deadly than its predecessors, the number of cases not being the most important statistic and the emphasis on keeping hospitals from getting overwhelmed, both of these statistics are positive signs.

I am an advocate for optional testing being provided for students who want it. As long as SU still has a swath of resources allocated to COVID-19, students should have the opportunity to use them. Randomized mandatory testing, however, no longer has a purpose in the spring of 2022. The world has moved on from pandemic-era restrictions and policies, and it’s time that SU continues to do the same.

Dalton Baxter is a sophomore applied data analytics major. His column appears biweekly. He can be reached at dwbaxter@syr.edu.

Published on April 12, 2022 at 11:31 pm