University Isolation Housing Reaches Capacity

Amid record-high on-campus infection rates, students with COVID-19 are left to self-isolate in residence halls shared with their uninfected peers

Santa Clara’s isolation housing for those who have tested positive with COVID-19 is full for the majority of students, according to an email from the SCU COVID-19 Operations team sent to the student body on Jan. 7. The team announced today that there is limited capacity for “COVID-positive resident students who have approved vaccine exemptions and those with underlying health conditions.”

Due to the lack of isolation spaces available, students are being advised to shelter in place, which means remaining in their dorm rooms — many of which they share with other students who may or may not also have the virus.

In light of this development, the Jan. 7 email instructed students who do not have the virus but are rooming with someone who is COVID-positive to do one of the following:

“Go home if you would like to; Wear a KN-95 mask whenever you are around other individuals; If you have roommates or a shared bathroom, understand that you may have to share that space with someone who is positive for COVID-19 and is sheltering in place.”

This message came one week after the university welcomed resident students back to campus in their Dec. 29 email.

“Unless you choose to, you do not need to change your travel plans,” Vice Provost for Student Life Jeanne Rosenberger wrote in the email. 

Santa Clara’s positivity rate was registered at 7.6% when it was announced that isolation housing had reached capacity. As of Jan. 10, the university’s COVD-19 Dashboard reports that the on-campus positivity rate has increased to 9.2%. 

First-year students Katy Wolff and Madeleine Vitanza, who currently share a room in Swig Hall, have experienced the implications of a lack of isolation housing firsthand. Wolff tested positive for the virus on Monday while Vitanza tested negative. Since then, the roommates have continued to share their one-room dorm.

“I didn’t ask about any isolation space because I knew there was nothing available,” Wolff said. “I know they sent an email about how you could go home, but going home would require a four- to five-hour plane ride, which is not any more COVID-safe than staying here. So I didn’t really think I had any other places to go.”

“I don’t really feel that I have any options either,” said Vitanza, who also lives a plane ride away. “I would say that I would be welcome to stay in one of our friends’ rooms, but they all currently have COVID.”

Professor of public health Katherine Saxton, who is a COVID-19 Health Ambassador for the university, suggested students use strategies like masking, leaving windows open and avoiding direct contact to mitigate transmission of the virus when sharing communal living spaces.

“If you’re talking about isolation, first off, it is not guaranteed that everyone sharing a living space will get infected,” Saxton said. “Omicron is super contagious, but especially if you wear a high quality mask around each other, then you can reduce that risk quite a bit.”

Saxton continued, “There are plenty of anecdotal stories of people who are not becoming infected even when they lived with someone who is.”

According to Wolff, she and Vitanza spoke about possible prevention measures after Wolff tested positive.

“We discussed whether or not she wanted me to be masked [or] if she should be masked in the room, but we both decided that we were willing to be exposed to each other because, you know, it’s not comfortable for either of us to be wearing a mask in our room,” Wolff said.

As of Thursday, Vitanza has not tested positive.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, some universities have contracted with local hotels to increase isolation space. Saxton explained that there were multiple challenges with that option, including the issue that some hotels were unwilling to accept COVID-positive guests.

“If they will [accept COVID-positive guests], they’re not close to campus, so that makes it extremely difficult for sort of oversight, or some people are on the meal plan,” Saxton said. “You can have [Benson] food delivery if you’re in an isolation space, but how does that work if you’re at a hotel that’s miles away?”

The university’s Community Facilitators (CF), who are students employed to live in residence halls, are working to enforce COVID-19 prevention guidelines, but many are facing challenges amid the surge in positive cases.

“We are given floors that contain positive cases, but no specific names or number of cases,” a Swig CF said. “Basically, we’re not alerted [of names] at all unless someone who had a rapid test calls us when we’re on duty.”

The university’s COVID-19 dashboard lists exposure dates of positive cases by building, including residence halls. However, it does not specify the exposures by floor, making it difficult for CFs to know which areas to avoid.

When asked about communication from administrators and the COVID-19 Operations Team, the CF said, “Everyone’s kind of doing their best, but it’s a bit of a scramble, I think, in some cases.”

The source also said that COVID-19 protocols have been difficult to enforce within the residence halls.

“We’ll see people who aren’t following the proper isolation protocol and aren’t staying in their room and they should be, or not wearing masks when they should be,” the CF said. “We do our best to try and enforce mask policy and isolation policy, but at the end of the day, there’s only so much we can do.”

They continued, “That’s obviously very stressful because none of us want to catch it.”