A week after the University of Arizona issued a voluntary shelter-in-place recommendation to all students on or near the campus, officials say they are still seeing violations of COVID-19 safety rules.
A few days ago, a party with over 300 attendees was discovered and dispersed, said University President Robert Robbins during a Monday press conference.
“This resulted in several student sanctions," Robbins said. "This kind of behavior will negatively affect everyone, and I understand it. People want to get together and have a good time and see their friends, but this is not the time to do that.”
From Thursday through Saturday, university and Tucson police responded to 17 properties, Robbins said. They issued 19 citations and initiated 25 code of conduct violations with the dean of students office.
The shelter-in-place recommendation is in effect until next, but Robbins says it may be extended and made mandatory if things don’t improve.
Some Good News
Robbins shared some promising data: As of the university's most recent data from Sept. 18, the university’s daily positivity rate is 6.1%. That's the lowest it’s been in about two weeks.
“We want to get under that 5% level but we were running as high as 10 to 12% in the most recent future so this is all good news, he said.
In other welcome news, as of Sunday, 100 students have been approved to leave their isolation rooms. Robbins adds that no additional students were placed in isolation over the weekend. About 300 students remain in isolation on-campus, and another 75 are isolating off campus.
Robbins said he recently got tested for COVID-19 after he took students out to dinner. One of the students he met with later tested positive. Robbins said he’s already received negative results from two antigen tests and is waiting for results from a PCR test.
