The University of South Carolina now has 189 active coronavirus cases as of Tuesday, President Bob Caslen said at a town hall for families and students on Wednesday.
One of those is an employee case and the other 188 are students, according to the university’s COVID-19 dashboard. The quarantine and isolation dorms, the National Advocacy Center and Bates West respectively, have 12.6% of their total capacity in use currently. That’s about 36 spaces being used, up from 14 last week.
Caslen broke down the number of positive cases that came in each day. For Friday there were 20, Saturday saw 33, Sunday saw 5, Monday had none and Tuesday had 97 new COVID-19 cases reported.
“We also recognize it's, it's serious, but it is in line with what we are predicting what we have planned for,” Caslen said. “We're very fortunate that we're not seeing numbers that some of our other peer universities and campuses are seeing.”
This comes after the university quarantined both the Chi Omega and Delta Delta Delta houses in Greek Village. According to Caslen, one of the houses is up to 11 cases. He did not specify which house.
“If you look at the timing of these cases [in Greek Village] that are appearing now, that timing is more linked to communal contraction than it was as a result of the sorority rush activities,” Caslen said.
Panhellenic sorority recruitment began Aug. 10 and ended on Aug. 23.
With the addition of new cases, the alert level for the university has increased from .27 to .45. We still sit at the “new normal” level, which is the lowest on the alert scale.
USC’s COVID-19 dashboard will now be updated every Tuesday and Friday, instead of just Friday.
Caslen called off-campus parties “the greatest risk” that the university would experience in bringing students back to campus. He said the university cleared out four parties last weekend at Granby Mill, a local apartment complex.
“We're also working very closely with the mayor, and we are hoping that the mayor and the city council will approve an ordinance that will just ban these type of parties all together,” Caslen said.
Caslen and Anna Edwards, the associate vice president of student life, reiterated that those who host off-campus parties and those who violate quarantine or isolation will be suspended, which was also stated in an email sent out to students Tuesday.
Deborah Beck, the executive director of Student Health Services, said the university’s testing capacity is about 1,200 people per day.
In addition to coronavirus updates, the town hall also addressed the protests on campus over the past week.
“My advice is, to students and to faculty, is don't pay any attention to them, because that's exactly what they want. They want you to pay attention,” Caslen said.