TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — There has been a major spike in coronavirus cases at Florida State University just three weeks after the semester began.
The school dashboard showed Tuesday morning over 850 positive cases on campus between staff and students.
On Sunday, the University dashboard showed 123 students tested positive from August 2 to 30.
An update to the dashboard Tuesday morning shows 730 new cases from August 31 to September 4.
This comes as Leon County begins to see an uptick in cases over the weekend.
"I expect it," said Lauren Labou, a student at FSU. "I saw articles and headlines about it. I'm in ROTC so I heard about cases from there, but overall I'm not too worried because, like I said, I expected it."
Lebeau is a Junior at Florida State.
"I think because we're like the most healthy able body generation at the moment we feel like we're superior against it," Labou said.
The increase of student cases was noticed at the Florida A&M testing site seeing students from both schools.
"We're seeing a lot more college students right now," said Tanya Tatum with Student Health Services at FAMU.
FAMU's dashboard shows the school has 34 total cases with 14 positive students and 20 employees.
The administration put together a self-assessment app to help students determine if they should go to the physical classroom or not, with a checklist to monitor their symptoms.
"I'm anticipating we'll be seeing an increase in our numbers," Tatum said.
Students say they hope this rise in cases will get the attention of their peers.
"I think some people are taking it a bit more seriously," said Labou.
Florida State says they are concerned but this is not shocking to them and the university does not plan a shift to remote instruction at this time.
If a decision is made to transition to all remote instruction in the future, the university will notify the community.
FSU says they are doing multiple things including reducing the number and size of on-campus events.
Greek houses are limited to only those who live there and with the first game of the season coming up on Saturday, there will be no tailgating outside the stadium before and after the game.
