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COVID-19: Juniors, Seniors Invited Back To Stanford Campus For Spring Semester

STANFORD (CBS SF/BCN) -- With new COVID-19 cases declining in Santa Clara County, Stanford University officials have decided to invite juniors and seniors to campus for the Spring semester.

The semester begins on March 29 and will make the first time upper classmen have been on campus since the pandemic began a year ago.

The returning students will be required to undergo regular COVID-19 testing and most classes will remain remote.

"We have concluded that the conditions support moving forward with offering juniors and seniors the opportunity to return to campus for the spring quarter, with systems and safeguards in place to protect our community's health," the university said in an announcement. "We will need everyone in our community to continue doing their part to support one another's health and safety."

The university said that modeling by the Stanford School of Medicine "suggests that the trajectory of COVID-19 this spring is likely to be manageable" and that testing and response protocols have been "highly effective in limiting community spread."

The university said it hopes to offer "a meaningful on-campus experience in the spring," but noted that most undergraduate instruction would continue to be remote.

"Students on campus will continue to have mandatory twice-weekly COVID-19 testing, through the university, along with two-test arrival testing for newly arriving undergraduates," the university said, noting that similar testing during the winter quarter proved effective in identifying and isolating positive cases.

"Stanford saw almost no community spread throughout the winter quarter due to our robust contract tracing and quarantine systems for close contacts of infected individuals," the university said.

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