Conn. colleges tighten restrictions, penalize offenders as COVID rises

As coronavirus cases rise, several colleges in the state appear to be stumbling toward Thanksgiving, when students will be sent home to finish the semester. Many students have already headed home as universities grapple with increased cases and restrictions on everyday campus life.

Quinnipiac and Sacred Heart universities put their campuses on “red alert” on Friday due to an increase in cases, while Yale and Fairfield universities went to an

“orange alert.”

This means tightening restrictions on campuses, with some of the strictest rules at Quinnipiac, where 272 students are in isolation and 84 new cases were reported since Thursday. Students are learning remotely and on a 14-day quarantine.

“We are continuing with the analysis of our cases and their contacts, but with more opportunities for exposure in local communities, particularly in social settings of any size, we’re seeing our cases at QU also increase,” spokesman John Morgan said.

Sacred Heart University, which had 191 active cases among students and employees as of Sunday, moved classes online beginning Monday and canceled or suspended on-campus events for two weeks. Two residence halls are under quarantine, while testing has been increased.

“That sends the message that this is significant, so that we hope that all students, faculty and staff recognize we’re in a situation where the virus is here on campus,” said Gary MacNamara, head of public safety and co-chair of the school’s coronavirus planning team.

Although about 800 of the 3,000 on-campus students opted to go home over the weekend, the university does not expect to close the campus early, MacNamara said.

“We don’t think at this point we’re going to need that because of the red alert and the steps we’ve taken to contain what we have,” he said.

This is in part to prevent the virus from spreading to students’ hometowns, MacNamara said. Students who chose to go home are urged to get tested first.

“We have an obligation to the university, staff, faculty and students, but we also have an obligation to our community and the community our students live in,” he said.

Fairfield University has 134 active cases among students and three active cases with faculty and staff. An increase last week prompted the university to go virtual for all programs, activities and ceremonies, with the exception of “academic learning experiences,” spokeswoman Jennifer Anderson said.

Gatherings of more than five people are banned and a daily curfew has been implemented, she said. Off-campus students may not go on campus and must take classes remotely, she said.

Mitigation strategies like this have been effective in the past, Anderson said.

“The university expects to see this downward trend as a result of these strategies, once again,” she said.

About 40 percent of Quinnipiac students have stayed on campus as of Sunday, Morgan said. All classes will be remote until Nov. 18.

“We are testing all students this week, will be closely monitoring con

firmation of new cases, and will determine when and if it may be appropriate to resume in-person classes,” Morgan said.

The rise at Sacred Heart started after Halloween, although the university has not connected cases to a specific event that weekend, MacNamara said.

“It’s a combination of that Halloween weekend where small gatherings are getting together, people begin to let their guard down and just the number of cases are increasing statewide,” he said.

Penalties for rule-breakers

Cases have spread through student gatherings, rather than in the classroom, MacNamara said.

“The amount of out-of-classroom activity that we experienced we kind of expected,” he said. “We did expect that over time, COVID fatigue would set in.”

Sacred Heart suspended about 100 students for 30 days for breaking the university’s rule banning gatherings of more than 12 people. Those limits are down to 10 to match with new state rules, MacNamara said. Two students were dismissed for the semester for violating the rules more than once.

Quinnipiac has had nearly 500 student conduct cases, which have ranged from written warnings for violating mask or physical distancing rules to removal from university housing and on-ground classes for violating visitor and gathering policies, Morgan said.

In about 130 of these instances, students were removed from university housing or, in the case of off-campus students, restricted from campus, in addition to being prohibited from in-person classes, he said. Some students were temporarily suspended or sent home for the rest of the semester.

“We have been strictly enforcing our COVID-related health policies and protocols all semester,” Morgan said.

Fairfield students also face penalties such as expulsion or getting kicked out of campus housing.

There is a zero-tolerance policy with regards to students not following mitigation strategies, and failure to comply with all mandates issued by the university and public health authorities, may result in permanent separation (i.e.expulsion) from the university,” Anderson said.

At Western Connecticut State University, there have been 29 disciplinary cases connected to COVID violations, spokesman Paul Steinmetz said.

Eleven of those were related to the ban on students visiting other residence halls, while two cases were for social gatherings. Others were connected to alcohol, the mask policy, and failing to quarantine or go to a campus COVID test, he said.

“The discipline depends on the severity of the violation and can range from a warning to dismissal from school,” Steinmetz said. “I believe no one has been dismissed for any of the above.”

Steinmetz said the university knows it probably has not caught every party,

but they have not been a major problem.

“We believe most students are being cautious and responsible for their own and others’ safety,” he said.

Challenges and successes

Although Sacred Heart and other colleges test students without symptoms, the big challenge is that students could have the virus and not know it, MacNamara said.

“Other than a lot of those tests, people are walking around not even knowing they have it,” he said.

Contact tracing has gotten harder as cases rise, MacNamara said. The university is looking to improve that process next semester, he said.

“What might be easier to do with single-digit cases always becomes harder when you get into double-digit cases,” he said.

The university tests about 50 percent of its asymptomatic students every week, in addition to testing students with symptoms, MacNamara said. That’s up from around 10 to 15 percent of the on-campus students at the beginning of the semester, he said.

WestConn tests its on-campus students, too, but not commuter students, so it has been hard to track the health of the latter, Steinmetz said.

Nineteen of the university’s 26 cases throughout the semester have been with commuter students, Steinmetz said.

Although eight of the 26 cases came last week, the positivity is 0.95 percent, far below that of other colleges and nearby communities, including Danbury, he said.

WestConn opened its campus a few weeks later than other colleges, so the university better learned from others, Steinmetz said. Students also wanted to avoid that return home, he said.

“Our student are doing a good job so far thinking about their safety and the safety of their fellow students,” Steinmetz said.

A successful strategy at Sacred Heart has been quarantining specific residence halls when there is a rise of cases there, MacNamara said.

“We wanted to limit the opportunity if they did have (the virus) to spread the virus elsewhere on campus,” he said. “That allowed us time to test.”

Life on campus

Despite the red alert, Sacred Heart’s campus is not dead, MacNamara said. Meals are grab-and-go, but locations like the library and bookstore remain open.

“Life is still occurring,” he said. “We’ve eliminated a lot of the activity on ground, but students are still out and about.”

But he said the university wants to do better at supporting sick students in isolation. For those students, the university has hosted music and movie nights for students to enjoy from their balconies, he said.

“Isolation shouldn’t be as harsh of an event as it sounds,” MacNamara said. “We’re still trying to find ways to engage them.”