Off-campus housing has been secured for some Cal Poly students with confirmed cases of COVID-19.
The University says it’s unable to identify the specific housing locations due to privacy concerns, but confirms that the recent spike in positive cases among students led to the need to find overflow space off campus for 20 students.
Cal Poly has about 180 isolation/quarantine beds for students living on campus. As of Friday, 67 were available.
“In effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 related to the recent increase in cases our campus community has seen in the last week, the university needed to use some of its isolation beds in order to quarantine some students who had not tested positive but who were deemed to have been at increased risk of developing COVID-19 after have a significant exposure to someone who had tested positive,” Cal Poly spokesperson Matt Lazier told KSBY News in an email Friday morning.
He says more isolation spaces are becoming available on campus and does not anticipate the need for more off-campus housing.
The students already placed in isolation off-campus will remain there “to minimize any potential exposure in relocation,” Lazier said, adding they are receiving support services from Cal Poly, including dining and laundry services, which are also being offered to students isolating on-campus.
With the end to fall quarter nearing, Cal Poly has asked all students to leave, and early, if possible, by the end of next week; However, the University says any students with COVID-19 or who have been told to quarantine and have not been cleared by health officials should stay in the housing they’ve been assigned until given other guidance.
Those students will continue being provided with support services by the university, even if their stay extends beyond Nov. 20, according to Cal Poly.
Since July 8, at least 175 students living on campus have tested positive for COVID-19. Fifteen of those cases were identified by Campus Health & Wellbeing within the last day and another 14 cases were reportedly confirmed among students living off-campus.
Cal Poly reports a total of 12,385 students have been tested on campus since Oct. 3 as part of the university’s ongoing testing program.
One-hundred and three students with confirmed cases of the virus are isolating on campus. Another seven are in quarantine after being exposed to someone with COVID-19.
One thousand and eighty-five students are currently quarantining in place for 14 days, up 147 from the day before, due to possible exposure in University Housing facilities.