14 At LIU Post Contract Coronavirus After Off-Campus Gathering

BROOKVILLE, NY — Fourteen students at LIU Post in Brookville tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, following gatherings among multiple sports teams, officials said in a letter to the community.

In a letter to the community Sunday, Michael Berthel, head of student affairs at the university, said students and people who came in close contact with them were isolating. The university, which has held in-person classes, said it was disinfecting the contaminated areas.

"We will notify all students and faculty who are in classes with these individuals, however, if you were considered to be in close contact with someone who has tested positive, you would have already been contacted as part of the contact tracing process," Berthel said.

Newsday reported, citing anonymous university sources, that the gatherings involved members of the university's football, baseball and women's soccer teams.

The news comes as a new coronavirus outbreak was reported at Iona College in New Rochelle. In that case, the college confirmed 60 cases as of Monday. Classes will be held remotely for the time being.

The outbreak was contained — at this time — to Iona's student body, Mayor Noam Bramson said in a robocall to the community. There was no evidence of spread to the larger community, Bramson said, and nearly all cases were traced to a single event.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has warned that colleges nationwide have seen clusters of cases, and that New York would be no exception. In September, he announced that colleges that have 100 cases or a number of cases equal to 5 percent of their population would be forced to shift to remote learning for at least two weeks.

"We should anticipate clusters and that's what we're seeing. Be prepared for it, get ahead of it," Cuomo said at the time.