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Coronavirus cases on the rise at Cal Poly

August 31, 2020

Days prior to the scheduled return of students to the Cal Poly campus, the number of university community members with coronavirus cases is on the rise.

As of Monday, Cal Poly has a total of 58 cases among students, faculty and staff members, according to the university’s new coronavirus information website. Of the 58 cases, 52 are individuals currently in San Luis Obispo County.

The Tribune reports 52 students and six Cal Poly employees have tested positive for the coronavirus since March. A total of 40 of the cases have been detected in August, including 13 since Friday.

Students are scheduled to begin moving into campus residence halls on Thursday, with the move-in process lasting until Sept. 13. Classes are scheduled to begin on Sept. 14.

Cal Poly recently modified its housing policy to prevent students from sharing on-campus rooms this year in dormitories and apartments. The change reduced the maximum number of students in campus housing to 5,150, or about 60 percent capacity.

However, Cal Poly Vice President for Student Affairs Keith Humphrey is now saying no more than 4,253 students are allowed to move into campus residence halls. Humphrey said 4,606 students applied for housing contracts, as of last Wednesday, though the number of students seeking on-campus housing is expected to decrease as student schedules are issued, and the housing deferral deadline passed.

The university had previously planned to open campus housing to approximately 6,000 students, or at about 70 percent capacity, but Cal Poly officials were met with public outcry.

In order to prevent the spread of the virus at Cal Poly, students are now required to have a coronavirus test taken within 72 hours of arriving on campus. University health officials have the capacity to conduct 600 tests per day.


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Why are the students allowed on campus? All virtual. Unless other decided I thought.


0

Why?

Money. People need a paycheck.

We have a “service based economy”. Most people live paycheck to paycheck. A “living wage” is mocked. And during this pandemic, the price of everyday items at the grocery store increased quite a bit.

So…..people need a paycheck. They would rather take their chances with Covid-19 than have credit card companies, and others, calling for a missed payment. They can survive Covid-19. They can’t survive a low credit score, or worse.


1

Send the students home and close the campus…why is SLO allowing the university to infect their city?….


7

SLO town is not leaving “purple” on the Covid tracker anytime soon. With all the kids coming back, we’re probably going to see a large hotspot.


Local businesses will be who suffers — when Cal Poly knows damn well they could focus on distance learning.


11

Exactly. My first time highschooler has to do it. Why shouldn’t every school here?


2

“why is SLO allowing the university to infect their city?”


Same reason as Tuscaloosa, Alabama is letting the University of Alabama hold in person classes even though their positivity rate is 17%. Ours is under 5% now.


I find it interesting that all the right-wingers who forced the economy open too early are now up in arms about college students coming back to class.


5

Exactly! Seems like a no brainer to me.


0

So does that mean only 6,000 students total for in person learning?

Or do the rest of the students, above the 6,000, live in off campus housing, more crammed together than they were before!


14

At 600 tests per day, $100 per test that’s a cool 60 G’s a day.


16

More math. Poly can do 600 tests per day and students need a test within 3 days of arrival. Said students number 4253 and I’m no college graduate but it seems there is a shortage of 2453 available testing at Poly to meet this plan. Can SLO county make up the difference? How will this impact the residents of the county?


5