PORTLAND, Maine (AP) The University of Maine System is in the midst of an effort it called “safe departure testing” to avoid sending students home for Thanksgiving with the coronavirus.

System Chancellor Dannel Molloy says the goal of the effort is to avoid sending home students who might be infected but are not showing symptoms.

He says the system has 5,000 test results in hand and is working to isolate 31 cases of the coronavirus that would have gone undetected without the effort.

Also Monday, the state reported that the total number of coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic has exceeded 10,500.