Cluster of COVID-19 Cases in Isla Vista Fraternity and Sorority Houses

October 17, 2020, 9:50 am 19.6k Views 39 Comments

Source: UCSB Alerts

This emergency notification is being sent because the University and the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department (SBCPHD) have identified two separate clusters of positive COVID-19 cases in privately-owned fraternity and sorority houses in the Isla Vista community. Thirteen individuals residing in the two separate houses have tested positive for COVID-19. The impacted individuals have been self-isolating since being tested. The houses have been placed in quarantine on the orders of SBCPHD, and public health officials are leading contract tracing and outreach efforts.

Your health and safety are our top priority, and the university is working closely with public health officials to determine whether there are members of the campus community who need to be advised about their contact with these individuals. 

We have set up a COVID-19 Call Center for medical, testing, housing, registration, and other questions related to our COVID-19 response. It is operational weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at (805) 893-3113. You may also reach them at ucsb-covid19@ucsb.edu(link sends e-mail).

Our protocols are consistent with California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and CDC recommendations: screening, isolating, and testing individuals who have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 infection. By following statewide and national protocols, we are ensuring that we enact scientifically proven methods of responding in the most effective manner. 

The most important individual actions that all members of our community can take are:

  • PRACTICE SOCIAL DISTANCING IN THE COMMUNITY. Avoid crowded places and social gatherings. Gatherings in Santa Barbara County are currently prohibited by order of the Health Officer. Minimize unnecessary contact with others.
  • Keep your distance from others. It is recommended to be at least 6 feet from people in close spaces (cafes, elevators, library, etc.).
  • Wear face coverings in common and public indoor spaces and outdoors when distancing is not possible.
  • Wash your hands for more than 20 seconds with soap and water.
  • IF YOU ARE SICK, STAY HOME. Expect to be home for two weeks.
  • Have a plan in case you get sick. Include the following items in your plan:
    • How are you going to isolate yourself (how long, where)? 
    • Who are you to contact if you have symptoms (doctor phone number, Student Health, friend, family member)? 
    • If you are in isolation and have a need, who will you contact?
  • Stay calm. We understand this is a stressful situation for everybody, but remember that we can work together to get this pandemic under control.

Up-to-date information is available online at:

     

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Edhat Staff

Written by Edhat Staff

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39 Comments

  5. People keep saying that but no one, including Biden, has laid out a plan of what should have happened that would have magically prevented the US from catching a virus that has affected every corner of the globe (and was probably already in the US in 2019). Our extended issues here in CA are the result of Newsom not Trunp.

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  7. I do get it. they are UCSB partying, they are not going home. If they do go home, their parents can manage their own exposure risk…they know what their kids are doing…they get the visa bill every month with the liquor bill.

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  8. Voice of Treason – that’s not true at all. Look across all new sources not just FAUX. People who spread propaganda like that makes me wonder if they are just not educated or if they have nefarious motives.
    And the “China” virus, as Trump calls it, did not come in from China. The strain was brought from Europe. So glad Trumps DHS just let everybody flood the airports without any plan…..

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  10. Great! A bunch of frat boys and sorority girls are going to skew our community stats so we lurch towards lockdown…
    UCSB should shut down all the Greek houses until the pandemic is over. What were they thinking? This was completely predictable.

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  12. Is Trump also responsible for the worldwide cases? They are spiking in France, Spain, England – I guess that’s his fault too. Somehow the US was supposed to dodge this all together had Trump not been in office. So logical.

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  13. OOPS – you still don’t get it do you? Yeah, these kids will probably be fine, but what about their parents, grandparents, house cleaners, etc who they can infect? You do realize young people, while less likely to develop complications, are still contagious, right? They can still kill plenty of other people around them. Do you care at all?

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  14. VOICE – Everyone, including Biden (who isn’t the president, yet) has laid out a plan. That plan would have been to take this seriously from the get go. Not shame people for trying to protect themselves. Not tell your followers to go back to school or you’ll take away their funding. Not force people to be around you while you’re contagious with a deadly disease. Not call it a “liberal hoax” while you KNOW it is a deadly, dangerous disease. Not tell your followers that masks are useless. Not encourage your followers to follow your lead and tease and belittle those who are taking this seriously. Basically, the plan is/was, don’t do ANTYHING Trump did once the virus was here.

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  16. ANDREA – the US could never “dodge” COVID no matter who was in office. That’s not what people are upset about. It’s that, once it was here (which it would inevitably be), it was ignored, called a “hoax,” lied about and those who tried to take it seriously were ridiculed and even physically attacked. Our cases spiked higher than any country on earth. Why? Because we are the ONLY country where this was treated as a hoax or at best, a mild flu. That is why people are pissed off at our leadership.

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  17. Sacjon, you still don’t get it. Isolating the at risk and elderly means these kids don’t go home and hug their grandma. My kids haven’t hugged my parents since this started and they’re in elementary school (technically not even in school). The young and healthy who will shake off this virus like a cold are exactly the ones who should be out and about. At risk and elderly, stay home, stay safe, no problem. You really think it’s feasible for everyone to lockdown until a vaccine is developed? Lockdowns and restrictive measures do not eliminate the virus. If all the young and healthy catch it now, while the at risk stay safe, we’ll have a lot less problems later and be able to move past covid quicker.

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  18. VOICE – I never said lockdown, I’m actually heading out to watch some live sports now, all observers wearing masks. No, I simply tried to correct OOPS’ outdated “theory” that just because they’re young, it doesn’t matter if they get COVID. Not true. They could have already infected many at risk/elderly people without even knowing it. It DOES matter when young people get this. Never said lockdown, just take this crap seriously. That’s all, I’m out!

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  19. Hoax or not (I don’t believe for a second it’s a hoax), you gotta wonder though. After seven months or so, the hoax president, without taking any precautions, no mask, joking it up, denying, hanging out with lots of people not wearing masks…basically living in a toxic Covid cloud for all that time gets Covid. Then, you have your careful, calculated Salud Carajal, taking every precautions, following all the rules, mask, hand washing, keeping distance, avoiding crowds, and pretty much living in a bubble….gets Covid. I guess my point is, that if you’re going to get Covid, you’re gonna get it no matter what. Trump and Salud: Covid Survivors. One is a rotten egg, and the other is a hero.

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  20. I cant post the link, but it was the a report about Arizona and the cases recorded when the mask mandate went into effect, compared to when restrictions were lifted. it showed the spikes from non mask use and restrictions on social distancing being lifted. like I said I cant link it persay, but a quick google search will bring it up.

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  24. Trump sucks… but that’s also ridiculously simplistic and dumb. We actually report deaths (and cause thereof) in America… that’s obviously not universal. The real Chinese death toll will never be known… let alone most other countries in the world.

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  25. THEKID5: You made a mistake with respect to deaths. We have 4.2% of the world’s population and only 1.5% of the world’s known SARS-CoV-2 deaths. Therefore, we have 1/3 the death rate that our population indicates we should have. In fact, the US ranks 8th worldwide in deaths/million people.

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  27. OOPS – Again, you’re missing the point. Not just their parents are at risk. EVERYONE they come into contact with/have contacted while asymptomatic is at risk. These greek homes have cleaners and some have their own chefs. These students go out and about in the community. EVERYONE they contact is at risk of infection and spreading it. Stop minimizing what even Trump acknowledged (not sure now) as a deadly and dangerous virus.

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  28. M-CUBED, I totally agree on all fronts. Either shutdown completely and snuff this thing out, or just allow nature to take its course. The former would require worldwide agreement and cooperation to work, otherwise after our 3 weeks of martial law and zero infections we’d be subject to reinfection without closing ourselves off to the rest of the world indefinitely, which is basically impossible. This in-between situation has only caused frustration and economic damage. As for the vaccine, good luck with that because I’m also not going to offer myself up to experimentation.

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  29. While we don’t have the world’s best medical care, at least as far as access, why would anyone believe our death rate could be reasonably compared to most third world countries, and thus conclude we have fewer deaths than our due? Seems a little simplistic and naive.

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  32. Yeah, set loose the dogs of death! Let’s ravage both the economy and the population, with lingering effects for years to come! (And then still have a problem, since immunity to the virus seems like it might be short-lived.)

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  33. Just one question I would like answered by those who think that Trump has done such a great job to contain Covid-19 in our country-We have about 4% of the world’s population and between 20% and 25% of the worlds known Covid-19 cases and deaths. We have about 5 to 6 times the infection and death rate that our population indicates we should have. Why is this happening in one of the so-called most advanced countries in the entire world?

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  34. I don’t think anyone thinks he has done a great job, no one could have done a great job with how hyper-partisan our nation is right now. (i.e. on side tries to limit travel from China, the other goes to Chinatown and proclaims how safe it is and to come on down). The smart, science based response went out the window when we abandoned 15 days to flatten the curve and stopped focusing on hospital capacity. If you look not at the number of cases, but the mortality rates and hospitalization rates from before July and after July it would appear as if we’re battling two different viruses. One was very serous and deadly, the other wouldn’t even meet the CDC’s definition of pandemic.

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  36. M-CUBED – I think theoretically you might be right. If we completely shut down EVERYTHING and stayed in our homes, going absolutely nowhere, the virus could have died off. However, this just wasn’t/isn’t feasible, especially in this country where people value their freedoms to the extent they’re willing to kill fellow Americans for just the perception that they might be infringing on them. The CDC has said though, multiple times, if we all just wore the damn masks, we could have gotten it under control sooner. Again though, we live in a country where perceived personal “freedoms” are held higher than the public good. People pushed back against “oppression” and some have gone so far as to try to commit treason (overthrowing the MI and other states’ governments). We’re a country of simple folk who feel their “rights” are more important than their own kids being safe.

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  37. Sacjon, stop spreading misinformation. While masks provide a narrow benefit when used appropriately (which no one does because that involves not touching your mask), specifically it assists in preventing asymptomatic people from spreading the virus to people they’re in close contact with (defined as indoors, closer than 6 feet, for longer than 15 minutes), the idea that if everyone always wore masks we’d have the virus under control is completely false. Just as it isn’t possible to lockdown for a month and have the virus disappear. The CDC and WHO never ever recommended masks for those not sick, even recommended against them, for all other respiratory viruses prior to and even during covid. This narrative only changed when politics and “image” got involved. Now masks are simply virtue signally 95% of the time. Just look at every state and country and their covid cases overtime, mask use did not lead to a reduction in cases. “well not everyone was wearing a mask” you will probably argue, well this CDC study shows that 85% of the covid positive patients always (71%), or often (14%) wore a mask. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6936a5.htm

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  39. Sacjon, specifically this: “if we all just wore the damn masks, we could have gotten it under control sooner.” that is false for the reasons stated in my post. While I do wear a mask when I have to because I’m not an a-hole, improper usage will increase your risk of catching covid or other virusus / bacterial infections. The study I cited would actually back this up. Imagine this, your healthy and walking around with your mask on, touching doors, handles, whatever, then you adjust your mask, or take it off to put on later. Well now you’ve potentially transferred a respiratory virus from your hand, to this mask (which doesn’t filter out the virus), which you’re now breathing in and out of = the virus is now in your nose/lungs. It’s like how can I increase the chances of getting a virus? Put it on this piece of cloth I breathe in and out of! Image you weren’t wearing a mask, touching everything, them maybe even your cheek, much less risk of contamination. Just like the CDC said from the very beginning, and for all prior respiratory illnesses (until it became a symbol), 1) stay home when sick, 2) wash your hands often, 3) avoid touching your face. No masks needed.

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