UPDATE, Feb. 22: Sigma Delta Tau was taken off IU’s quarantine list Monday. The house spent roughly one week in quarantine. Evans Scholars is still listed as under quarantine on IU’s website as of Monday night.
The Evans Scholars and Sigma Delta Tau houses were directed to quarantine Monday because of an increased number of COVID-19 cases in the house, according to IU’s Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life website.
These are the first two houses directed to quarantine by IU and the Monroe County Health Department during the spring semester, and Evans Scholars’ second quarantine order of the 2020-21 school year.
The quarantine period resets with every new positive test in the houses. Some houses in the fall were in quarantine for over a month as a result. Thus it’s unclear exactly how long the Evans Scholars and Sigma Delta Tau quarantine orders will last.
It is unclear how many students in the two houses tested positive for the coronavirus as well as the positivity rate in each of the houses.
Residents living in communal housing like these primarily moved in during the final week of January. About 100 students were living in all the greek and other communal houses prior to the move-in week. It’s currently unclear how many students are living in the greek houses.
During the first month of the fall semester, many greek houses experienced significant COVID-19 outbreaks. At one point in September, 33 greek houses were placed under quarantine orders at the same time.
Dr. Aaron Carroll, IU’s director of mitigation testing, said during his Wednesday webinars in the fall he wanted extra mitigation testing for communal houses — testing every live-in resident at least once a week — in order to prevent similar outbreaks in the spring. To this point, there has not been an outbreak similar to that of the fall.
This week’s COVID-19 dashboard update will provide information on the first full week of mitigation testing for all of the live-in greek life students.
