College Reports Impressive Zero COVID-19 Positivity Rate After Processing Over 10 Tests

As peer institutions like Brown and Duke University have tightened restrictions amid campus-wide breakouts, Dartmouth appears unscathed by the highly infectious Delta Variant: in a week in which over a dozen COVID tests were processed, zero came back positive.

“Uh… Yeah. Mhm. Yeah… Yeah, I test,” said Benjamin Neffe ’23. “I […] usually go after my anthropology lecture in Silsby because it’s right near where testing is […] not, so I go when I’m in the area where testing is when I’m near the place in which testing takes place for the current term’s testing.”

“He does. I do too, go where testing is when I amble to the region of campus where testing sites have been erected, because of the important mandate that we test and go to the place where one can find testing,” confirmed Neffe’s classmate Jacob Polind ‘23. 

“We’re both amazed and thrilled with this result,” said Dean Neil Bloom in an interview. The Dean is optimistic for the future, hoping that “several six or seven more students will accidentally stumble into the testing line when they’re near the place to get tested, for example when they are en route to a class in the vicinity of the structure on campus designated for the purpose of COVID-19 surveilling, or something like that.” The Dean plans to get tested “one of these days, whenever there may be a free block in my schedule,” whichever happens sooner.

Epidemiologists weighed in positively on the results as well. Geisel’s Dr. Maya Rosario expressed her incredulity to us in an interview: “Zero positive tests is really something… even if only a handful of students are testing.” She then produced profiles of the tens of students that tested in the last week. “This, is Rachel Gallagher ‘24, and she attended between zero and five fraternities this past Friday and according to all her friends she’s likely dating Matt Weiss ‘24, and there is a strong possibility that he attended a rush event on Saturday, and she tested negative, so that means that although he and everyone at the parties did not test, we know they’re negative because if Rachel had it she certainly would have spread it to at least ten or a thousand other people, and we surely would have gotten at least one of those to test, but we didn’t, since all the students that tested last week were negative,” Dr. Rosario explained in what became an interactive, thirty-minute lecture. “The special few students who test are representatives of the student body. Like, we have Marisa Caldwell ‘24, who is a prospective art history major and Jacob Richfield ‘22 who’s always making eyes at over-under 30% of the campus population, so we don’t need anyone but these great few to test… It’s like a republic of testing,” she finished, confidently. 

At press time, you received an email to get tested.

– DK ’24