If you’d told me back in August that Penn State would make it to April relatively unscathed by the coronavirus pandemic, I’d have called you crazy.

And yet, here we are. As the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel continues to grow and spring arrives, Penn State is slowly starting to resemble the Dear Old State we once knew and loved. Campus is active, the Creamery is scooping, and in-person events like graduation and the Blue-White Game (or, rather, its distant cousin) are just on the horizon.

Unsurprisingly, though, COVID-19 is slowly returning, too. And as the virus’s grasp on Penn State alarmingly grows every day, it’s time for the university to get a grip and take action.

All year long, President Eric Barron has consistently reiterated that Penn State is working to get its community back to normal, mainly through reintroducing events like commencement, while remaining flexible and ready to utilize “off-ramps” if deemed necessary.

“We believe we can do it safely, but we can always pivot away if things become worse,” Barron said Friday. “We’ve created a number of on-ramps with different activities…But we can create off-ramps just as fast.”

What’s it going to take, then? Just over the last week, Penn State reported more than 300 new COVID-19 cases among University Park students and employees. Over the past month? More than double that. And as Eastview Terrace’s quarantine and isolation spaces reach near 60% capacity, Penn State’s starting to run out of places to send affected on-campus students.

Since March 18, the university “encouraged” students living in eight on-campus dorms (seven of which are in East Halls), as well as Beaver Hill apartments residents, to get tested for COVID-19, noting positivity rates in each building had reached at least 2%. Penn State took it a bit further this weekend by asking all East residents to get tested for COVID-19 through a pop-up testing site open for just five hours on Saturday.

Look, I’m no epidemiologist, and I’m certainly not a bigwig administrator. But if you need to ask 4,000-plus first-year students to get tested for COVID-19 on short notice, there might be a problem.

And therein lies the trouble itself. Although Penn State sends out advisories asking certain populations to get tested, there are no consequences to ignoring those notices (besides potential virus exposure, of course). No repercussions. No, “So what?” Asking nicely can get you only so far.

At the very least, Penn State’s testing requests are performative in nature. They look good from afar, but how helpful are they in the grand scheme of things? As it observes community spread, Penn State needs to make its targeting testing mandatory. Or, at the very least, provide an incentive for students, like the free t-shirts it gave out while conducting “universal” COVID-19 testing in February.

Since that mandatory testing of all students on campus last month, it feels like Penn State hasn’t taken any meaningful action to combat COVID-19’s spread. Frankly, it feels like the university’s dropped the ball just moments away from the finish line.

It’s worth noting that despite offering walk-up testing six days a week, Penn State’s random surveillance testing is still rather slow. The university selects just 1 or 2% of the campus population for random testing each day — a far cry from other universities. Illinois, for example, requires students to get tested twice every week. Meanwhile, I have still yet to be selected for Penn State’s surveillance testing, 217 days since returning to campus.

Moving forward, Penn State needs to find the right balance between returning to “normal” and staying safe. Yes, it’s great that we’re seeing more in-person recreation opportunities each week, for example. But we can’t take that for granted and ignore the responsibility that ultimately comes with normalcy. After all, the student experience is, whether we like it or not, a privilege.

As Penn State introduces more and more in-person events and experiences, the harder it’ll get to use an “off-ramp” to deescalate student life. Planned field trips to Beaver Stadium and expanded gym hours won’t mean a damn thing if they compromise the student body’s safety. We’ve survived nearly eight months without the college experience of years past already, and I’d happily continue if it meant fewer students unnecessarily contract COVID-19.

If Penn State can’t handle its COVID-19 outbreak, surrounding communities will hurt, too. Just this week, the New York Times‘ data team found State College’s current virus outbreak to be the seventh-worst in the country among metropolitan areas. Although the Department of Health now believes technical errors may have played a role, both Centre County and Pennsylvania reported their highest number of COVID-19 cases since late January on Saturday.

On top of that, local health networks are feeling the pressure yet again. Mount Nittany Health, for example, is currently treating its highest number of COVID-19 patients in six weeks.

Local businesses, including bars and restaurants and previously closed venues like movie theaters, are just days away from loosened restrictions thanks to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, who will roll back select guidelines on April 4. As they renew or expand their operations, they’re depending on Penn State to make sure there’s still a community left to serve.

At the end of the day, Penn State knew the risks in bringing students back to campus amid the pandemic. It did in August, and it certainly does today.

Students can (and must) wear their masks and keep their distance as much as possible. But they also need a university that’s willing to make tough choices to keep its community safe from a threat bigger than any one individual.

With six weeks left in the semester, there’s still time for Penn State to crank its COVID-19 testing into high gear and pump the brakes on in-person events. The choices may not be popular, but the alternative is unacceptable.

The clock’s ticking, Penn State.