James Madison University announced late Friday that plans are being finalized to resume in-person instruction on Oct. 5.
A key to the plan is a strategy to test 300 non-symptomatic students per week who have not yet tested positive for COVID-19 to identify and get ahead of potential outbreaks of COVID-19.
The school, in a press release, highlighted that it has tripled its isolation and quarantine beds, with moves to add capacity ahead of Oct. 5.
The plans in the works also will cap capacity for all classroom spaces at 50 people. This means the majority of classes with over 50 students will continue to meet online for the rest of the semester. Some classes with enrollments over 50 students will continue to operate in a hybrid model, where students are assigned days to meet in-person and days to meet online.
Of all the positive cases confirmed at JMU since July 1, 261 cases are considered active or have been diagnosed in the last 10 days.
Since peaking on Sept. 6, the seven-day moving average for students testing positive has dropped 74.5 percent, according to an analysis of the JMU COVID-19 dashboard.