Around 20% of greek houses will be required to quarantine after an increase of positive COVID-19 tests. All greek, IU Evans Scholars and Christian Student Fellowship houses have been directed to suspend in-person activities until at least Sept. 14, according to a Thursday night email from the university.
The increase in cases was identified by mitigation testing, according to the email. Dr. Aaron Carroll, director of surveillance and mitigation of IU’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, said in an interview Friday that all on-campus greek students were retested this week, and it’s likely they will be retested multiple times due to the exposure risk associated with living in greek housing.
Eight greek houses are required to quarantine — six fraternities and two sororities. They are Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Sigma Phi, Beta Theta Pi, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Phi Gamma Delta, Phi Kappa Psi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Theta Chi, according to the email. These houses are also receiving notices from the Monroe County Health Department and the Division of Student Affairs.
The email said there is a strong possibility other houses will have to quarantine as well.
Housed greek and self-governing student organizations created their own protocols for dealing with COVID-19 since they are not owned or operated by the university.
No IU residence halls are included in the measures, according to the email.
Mel Fronczek contributed to this reporting.
This story was updated 4:53 p.m. Friday to include information from an interview with Aaron Carroll.
