COVID-19 cases at colleges are on the rise, and schools across the Hudson Valley are keeping a close watch on the numbers.

Purchase College officials say they have protocols in case they see a big spike in cases, but fortunately that's not the case at this point. 

School officials tell News 12 they currently have 18 active cases among students and three employee cases. They say if any program, or the campus as a whole, reaches a 5% positivity, they will issue a pause.

That's not a lot compared to numbers from Cornell University, in upstate Ithaca, where they have more than 900 cases among students.
School officials there say a very high percentage of them are omicron variant cases in fully vaccinated people.

On Tuesday, the school shut down the campus and made final exams virtual.

News 12 spoke with Cornell students who are from Westchester who are now home and under quarantine. "I'm like wearing a mask around my house…definitely being careful because I know some girls tested positive after they got home," says sophomore Maya Sauthoff, of Pleasantville.

Anabel Maldonado, of Bronxville, is a sorority sister of Sauthoff, and she tells News 12 they're disappointed in the school's slow response.

The sophomores live in a sorority house with 35 girls, with an increasing number of them testing positive by the day.

They're now anxiously awaiting COVID-19 test results. "All Cornell students are a little disappointed and confused as to why we didn't do arrival testing, because that's where this all came from—Thanksgiving," Maldonado says.

In a statement, a Cornell representative told News 12: "Currently we have more than 850 students in isolation, and reserve capacity at local hotels to accommodate current quarantine needs for our community. We are working in partnership with our county's health department to coordinate on isolation protocols and assist students who have received a positive test. …We are communicating this to our student community and trust that they will continue to follow public health guidance.”