As of Sept. 21, 2020, the total number of COVID-19 cases at DSU is just above 100. Many attribute this to the decisive way administration has handled the pandemic. Other Mississippi colleges that have handled COVID-19 in a similar way have similar results.

2.7 percent of enrolled students at DSU have COVID-19. Ole Miss has a similar ratio of 2.5 percent with 497 suspected cases and Mississippi State comes in slightly lower at 1.4 percent with 313 suspected cases as of Sept. 20.

Click the links for updated numbers for DSU, Ole Miss and Mississippi State. The policies of each university are provided by the CDC. 

According to DSU’s COVID-19 coordinator Robin Douglas, our policy, along with MSU and the University of Mississippi, is to enforce masks in public, social distance and those to quarantine if in contact with those who are COVID-19 positive. 

Additionally, hotspots are used to determine if a building is at risk of an outbreak.

 Douglas says, “If there are three or more cases, we call that a hotspot,”. She also mentioned that there have been very few hotspots.

Many students worry that the school may send them home for the semester, but Douglas said that the school will most likely not send us home.

When DSU opened for the Fall 2020 semester, the school board set a limit of 65 cases to be reached. When this limit was reached, a meeting was called to determine if DSU would shut down on-campus activities. Douglas says that the board decided to keep the campus open, as fewer hotspots were showing up.

She says that unless hotspots become more common, the university expects to keep COVID-19 under control.