Campus feels like a ‘ghost town’ as Duke evaluates status of its COVID lockdown
For nearly a week, Duke University students have been confined to their dorm rooms other than to get food, exercise and a COVID-19 test. Duke moved all classes online and restricted campus activities to combat a recent rise in coronavirus cases among students tied to fraternity rush.
University officials and health experts are analyzing daily COVID test results to determine whether or not to lift the temporary campus lockdown as planned on Sunday morning.
“The whole environment all over campus seems tense ... and a feeling of uncertainty,” freshman Pilar Kelly said.
Cold, rainy weather with an empty quad this week has been a stark difference from the recent spike ball games and picnics outside.
“Walking through campus, it’s kind of like a ghost town,” Kelly said.
She said she feels like the student body has been diligent in following COVID protocols, but was punished for the actions of one group of students. “To have all of that hard work ruined by something like disaffiliated frats rushing was definitely frustrating,” Kelly said
Duke implemented the stay-in-place order Sunday. Duke fraternities disaffiliated from the university to host rush recruitment events this spring, which led to the rise in cases, particularly among first-year students.
“Spring semester started nicely, then everything kind of went downhill the past couple weeks,” Kelly said. “It’s kind of a dramatic switch. It’s like the least smooth that life has been at college.”
Duke evaluating numbers and spread
Gary Bennett, Duke’s vice provost for undergraduate education, said they’ve seen good compliance with the new restrictions on campus this week. He told faculty at an Academic Council meeting Thursday that students are demonstrating a significant amount of resiliency in this challenging moment.
Duke is doing about 3,000 to 4,000 COVID-19 tests per day, including Duke students and employees. A team of analysts are looking at the directions of daily positive case counts, rather than a specific number, according to Mike Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs. The level of spread is going to be a key factor in the decision to lift the stay-in-place order.
“We’d like to see a decline [in cases] that was as steep as the increase,” Schoenfeld said.
There are about 200 active cases on campus, according to Duke’s COVID-19 dashboard.
Last week, Duke administered nearly 22,000 tests to about 11,000 students and employees. Duke reported a positivity rate of 1.1% with a total of 231 positive results — 211 of which were undergraduate students.
That was the highest number of positive cases reported in a single week at Duke since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s just under the total number of positive cases reported for the entire first semester at Duke.
“As close as we are to the end ... we’re still in the middle of a global pandemic, and there’s a highly infectious virus circulating in the community,” Schoenfeld said.
Duke administrators said they are “seeing the improvement we had hoped from the undergraduate community” in a message to undergraduate students Thursday night. For testing conducted through Wednesday, Duke reported 54 cases of COVID-19, down from 107 cases in the same period last week, according to the university.
However, the stay-in-place order will still be in effect through 9 a.m. Sunday.
Spikes in COVID cases will be ‘short-lived’
Durham County Health Director Rod Jenkins said officials are not naive to what happens on college campuses and he knew there would eventually be a spike at Duke. He said people tend to let certain seasons or activities, like the holidays or fraternity and sorority recruitment, get the best of them and they take more risks.
“It was just a matter of time between fatigue, spring fever, cabin fever and everything that this was bound to happen,” Jenkins said.
The recent activity at Duke has resulted in about 50% increases in Durham County’s daily cases, which have stayed relatively low, according to Jenkins. He also noted that whenever N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper loosens restrictions there has been a slight increase in cases because individuals feel like they’re “that much closer to going back to my normal life.”
Jenkins said he’s confident these high case counts will be “short-lived” based on Duke’s testing resources and lockdown strategy, as well as the experience of other counties with large institutions.
Disciplinary action due to COVID violations
Duke has issued 128 sanctions to students this spring, the university reported in a recent student conduct update. Those actions include suspensions for an upcoming semester, formal warnings, disciplinary probation, withdrawal of campus privileges and educational initiatives.
Nine students have been investigated for allegations of flagrant violations of COVID policy through Administrative Action Review Panels. In these cases, students could face interim measures, including loss of campus privileges and interim suspensions, during student conduct process.
Those flagrant violations include hosting gatherings, failing to follow quarantine and isolation protocols to protect fellow students, and repeated violations of COVID expectations.
Two campus organizations are currently on suspension for COVID-related infractions that occurred in the fall. Neither of those include organizations or fraternities disaffiliated with Duke.
The university noted that these sanctions could become a part of the student’s disciplinary record, which can be reported to graduate schools, study abroad programs, employers and other university programs.
This story was originally published March 18, 2021 at 6:30 PM with the headline "Campus feels like a ‘ghost town’ as Duke evaluates status of its COVID lockdown."
