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Students start moving into Indiana University's Bloomington campus

Posted at 10:09 PM, Aug 09, 2020
and last updated 2020-08-09 23:19:59-04

BLOOMINGTON — Over the next two weeks, students will continue moving into on-campus housing at Indiana University's Bloomington campus.

On Friday, university officials announced its plans for the return to campus.

PREVIOUS | Indiana University prepares for the return of students in Bloomington

Jakob Esch is a freshman at IU and is preparing to start classes at the Kelley School of Business on Aug. 24.

"I'm pretty glad that they are doing this because even though I had a recent test, there's always a risk of getting COVID-19 in that two-week period," Esch said.

On Sunday, all incoming students planning to stay in on-campus housing or Greek housing had to go through a COVID-19 screening process. The process allows for the university to find people who might not know they have COVID-19 and get them out of the general public.

"We've asked them also to be tested before they arrive," said IU School of Medicine Professor Dr. Aaron Carroll. "We've asked them not to come if they are sick. We've asked them to hunker down as much as possible and be quarantine so hopefully as few as possible will arrive infected."

If a student tests positive during the screening process, they have to either go into isolation on-campus or at home.

Freshman Abbey Armstrong moved into her dorm on Sunday and is excited to make new friends despite most of her classes being online.

"It will be it will make things a little bit harder meeting people but I think it will be an interesting experience and we will all bond over that," Armstrong said.

"It certainly gives you a little bit of pause but I think the university and the kids and everybody has done everything they can to make it as safe as possible so we just have to take it day by day," Tony Armstrong, Abbey's dad, said.

There are 540 dorms for students who test positive for COVID-19.

Carroll said they have plans in place when a student tests positive so students and officials are as prepared as possible.