Oklahoma State University quarantines entire sorority after 23 members test positive for COVID-19

Fall semester classes at Oklahoma State University began Monday with the entire Pi Beta Phi sorority in quarantine after 23 members tested positive for the coronavirus.

Only one Pi Beta Phi member was showing symptoms and none of his sisterhood sisters were allowed to leave the house off campus, officials said.

“At this point, no members have been hospitalized and all who are ill are experiencing minor effects from the virus,” Shawn Eagleburger, director of strategic initiatives at Pi Beta Phi said in a statement.

The sorority sisters who moved into the Pi Beta Phi house between August 2 and August 6 have all tested negative for COVID-19, Eagleburger said.

But as Pi Beta Phi embarks on a virtual recruiting drive to attract new hires, some of the sisterhood sisters let their guard down.

Eager to reconnect with friends, on August 11 a small group of members residing outside the facility joined the chapter for a brief informal meeting at the facility, ”Eagleburger wrote. “On August 12, the chapter president was informed that one of these members was showing symptoms of COVID-19; the member later confirmed that she had tested positive. On August 14, limbs who started to experience symptoms were tested; many have tested positive. “

University spokeswoman Monica Roberts said the campus is preparing for this possibility of mass infections.

“It was planned,” Roberts told the Daily Oklahoman on Saturday. “When you bring in 20,000 students, there will invariably be more campus-related cases. We have been preparing for this for five months and have protocols in place to deal with the situation. Our priority is the safety and well-being of our university community and the transparency of communications.

The lockdown at Pi Beta Phi came as Oklahoma has seen a surge in new COVID-19 infections, averaging nearly 800 new cases a day over the past four weeks, according to an NBC News analysis of the figures available.

Among those infected last month was Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, a Republican and ally of President Donald Trump who was criticized for his cavalier approach at the start of the crisis. So far, Oklahoma has reported 48,342 cases and 661 deaths from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

Nationally, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 was around 5.5 million and the death toll as of Monday morning exceeded 171,000, according to NBC News figures. The United States, which dominates the world in both categories, accounted for about a quarter of the 22.5 million cases and 776,000 deaths worldwide.

“It’s going,” Trump told reporters for the umpteenth time in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. “But, we are also going to have vaccines very soon.”

Trump, who downplayed the dangers of the pandemic and previously predicted that a vaccine would be available on election day, again offered no new evidence to support either claim.

Most of the new cases and deaths in the United States have been in the southern and Sun Belt states which have reopened at the urgent request of the Trump administration as the number of new COVID-19 cases began to rise .

Florida has been particularly affected in recent months. For the 76th day in a row, the state health department reported more than 1,000 new cases on Monday. And the Sunshine State was on track to soon join California as the only state with more than 600,000 confirmed cases, according to figures from NBC News.

As of Monday afternoon, Florida also reported 9,586 deaths.

The American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living said in an updated report Monday that there had been a “major spike in new COVID cases” which has now passed the previous peak level on May 31. and that 78% of them are in the sun. Belt states.

While nursing home deaths from the coronavirus had declined, they are on the rise again, and 69% of deaths at the end of July were in Sun Belt states, the report concludes.

Other national coronavirus updates:

• Oklahoma State isn’t the only major university where the decision to reopen the school is in question. At the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, which reopened last week and where at least four clusters of COVID-19 infections have been reported, the student newspaper expressed dismay at the school administration by posting an op-ed that had the word “cluster- —” in the title. “We’ve all seen it coming,” the Daily Tar Heel editorial board wrote. “University leaders should have expected the students, many of whom are now living alone for the first time, to be reckless. Reports of parties throughout the weekend are not surprising.” Although the students bear some of the blame, it was up to UNC-Chapel Hill to “discourage such gatherings by reconsidering its plans to operate in person earlier.” Under pressure, UNC-Chapel Hill announced later Monday that it was converting to all virtual classrooms.
• Coronavirus cases are already being reported in K-12 schools that have reopened, but the federal government is not tracking these outbreaks and some states are not publicly reporting them, NBC News reported Monday. This makes it more difficult for researchers to determine what can be done to prevent the spread of cases in schools. “Without good data that tracks cases over time – and shows how one case turns into multiple cases – there’s just no way to answer that question,” said Emily Oster, economist at the Brown University and co-founder of COVID Explained.

• Tensions between parents wanting to get their children back to class and teachers who fear infection have been exposed in Arizona, where a school district outside of Phoenix was forced to cancel classes on Monday after more than 100 teachers organized a disease. “We have received an overwhelming response from staff indicating that they do not feel safe returning to classrooms with the students,” Gregory Wyman, principal of the JO Combs Unified School District, said on Friday in a letter to parents. . Wyman said he didn’t know when “in-person teaching” would resume and virtual learning was also canceled. The teachers’ action was a challenge with a 3-2 vote by the district administration board to reopen classrooms. Teachers’ union president Joe Thomas said the district had ignored benchmarks that the Arizona Department of Health Services had urged schools to rely on in determining when they would reopen.

• Actress Sharon Stone revealed over the weekend that her younger sister Kelly Stone was in hospital battling COVID-19 and blamed people who refused to wear masks for her infection. “My sister Kelly, who already has lupus, now has COVID-19,” the “Basic Instinct” star wrote in an Instagram post. “It’s her hospital room. One of you who weren’t wearing a mask did. She doesn’t have an immune system.”

• The two skylights that symbolize the fallen Twin Towers and commemorate the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks will be lit after all. The 9/11 Memorial, which had canceled the annual event due to COVID-19 concerns, reversed course for the weekend after the public outcry. “Over the past 24 hours, we have had conversations with many interested parties and believe we can organize the tribute in a safe and appropriate manner,” said Alice M. Greenwald, President and CEO of 9/11 Memorial and Museum. The “Tribute in Light” will send the beams up into the night sky from dusk on September 11 to dawn on September 12 in lower Manhattan. Once the hottest hotspot in the country, New York was able to flatten its coronavirus curve. Governor Andrew Cuomo reported Monday that of the 56,891 tests reported on Sunday, only 408, or less than one percent, were positive. There were also six other deaths.

Joe murphy contributed.