In the last 10 days, four dining hall workers from Levine Marketplace, commonly known as Stetson East, tested positive for COVID-19, according to an email from Chancellor and Senior Vice President for Learning Ken Henderson sent to all students Thursday evening. The four employees were placed in isolation immediately after their diagnosis, and all close contacts have already been notified. 

According to Henderson’s email, there is no evidence the cases are connected. Regardless, the university is temporarily shutting down Stetson West and Stetson East for “the next day or two” while Chartwells, the company in charge of running the two dining halls, reassigns workers to the two eateries. Forty-one dining hall employees from the two Stetsons were instructed to get tested and return home.  

Henderson wrote that so far, there has been no evidence of spread to students from the dining hall and that the current seven-day positive test rate at Northeastern is 0.08%.“It is important to note that the university’s contact tracing team has not identified anyone else from the university community as a close contact and there is no evidence of any student having been exposed by dining at Stetson East,” Henderson wrote.