Coronavirus Update Sept. 1, 2020: UCCS responding to first student cases of COVID-19

UCCS responding to first student cases of COVID-19 

Dear members of the UCCS community,

With the start of the fall semester, several colleges and universities across the nation are reporting COVID-19 cases on their campuses.

On Monday, three of our students reported to us that they tested positive for COVID-19 over the weekend. All three of the students live off campus and are in close contact outside of school, which is where the exposures occurred.

We are confident that these cases have not resulted in a campus-wide spread. We are glad that all three students are only experiencing mild symptoms and are self-isolating. We have conducted contact tracing and have notified 14 individuals who may have been exposed. If you are not one of them, please feel comfortable that you were not exposed.

As these are among the first positive cases to impact our campus, there are a few lessons that we can learn to help us all be better prepared.

Through contact tracing, we learned that during an off-campus class meeting last week, one of the students who later tested positive for COVID-19 was in a small group where the instructor allowed students to remove their masks while they were still in close proximity.

We are investigating these circumstances, but know that all the people in this small group have been quarantined and the entire class has moved to remote learning for the next two weeks as a precaution. This demonstrates the critical importance of every member of the UCCS community continuing to wear a face covering and watching their distance.

In contrast, the other two students who later tested positive for COVID-19 were in class late last week on campus. These two students wore their face coverings and maintained social distancing. The class followed social distancing, limited interactions and face coverings, and did not have any additional quarantines. Purely as a precaution, the class has been moved to remote status for the next two weeks and deep cleaning of the impacted classrooms and common spaces have been completed.

I am grateful for our unstoppable UCCS community, which has risen to the challenge of keeping our faculty, staff and students safe. We have now seen strong evidence that continuing to wear your face covering, maintaining good hygiene and watching your distance plays a key role in these efforts.

I want to take this opportunity to send a strong reminder that faculty and staff need to remain vigilant and follow all campus and public health guidelines, and must also continue to remind our students to do the same. Our entire campus community must help us to continue to offer on-campus classes, along with other modes of delivery, by continuing to follow all public health protocols, both on and off campus. All these actions will help our campus in making a decision not to go fully remote.

We are truly all in this together – and we each have a role to play in continuing to keep each other healthy and safe.

Venkat Reddy 
Chancellor