The Emergency Operations Committee put together guidelines for students, staff and faculty to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
Toni Pratt-Reid, director and owner of the Family Health Clinic and co-leader of the EOC, said the committee put together a response team over the summer to counter the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are the Emergency Operations Committee that looks at any kind of significant events that may occur or happen on campus,” Pratt-Reid said. “Certainly when COVID came out, we formulated the team to make sure that OCU was best prepared, that we had all of the most up-to-date facts and that we had OCU in the best possible situation to continue operations and bring the students back on campus.”
The EOC meets every week to discuss any discoveries in COVID-19 research or updates with the disease in the surrounding area.
“In the EOC, which is a wide group of individuals that come from every aspect of the campus, from academic to facilities management, administration, health care, that sort of thing, we look and assess every single week and as necessary,” Pratt-Reid said. “If there is somebody that’s positive, what does that building look like? Who was in that building? Is there anything we need to do further than identify that we have a positive case?”
The EOC formats its guidelines around the alert level the school is on at the time. There are four alert levels: green, yellow, orange, and red. The green alert level is the lowest and least restrictive alert level. The university will be under this alert level when there is a vaccine or highly effective treatment, and low circulation of COVID-19 on campus and in the surrounding area. The green alert level, dubbed on the OCU website as the “new normal,” will see classes go to near full capacity, little to no restrictions on gatherings, sports and other activities, and easing social distancing protocols.
The yellow alert level is the moderate alert level and the one the campus is under at press time. The university is under this alert level when there is spread in the surrounding community, and there is no vaccine or effective treatment. This alert level makes use of remote and in-person classes and enforces strict mask and social distancing rules.
The orange alert level is the most restrictive level where students, staff and faculty remain on campus. In this alert level, OCU is still open, but there are strict limits on meeting sizes and high precautions for high-risk people. Almost all classes will be remote, and classes that cannot go remote will be restricted to 10 people or less, including the instructor.
The red alert level will enforce stay-at-home orders. OCU will close, and students, staff and faculty will be expected by the university to self-isolate.
Pratt-Reid said the EOC will judge the alert levels for the campus on several factors.
“We look at what the surrounding area looks like as far as the health of the communities around us, the health of the communities of the OCU campus,” Pratt-Reid said. “There’s a multitude of factors that go into our guidelines. Whether we have testing capabilities, whether there’s outbreaks in certain areas, whether the surrounding areas have adequate health care and hospitalization and bed capacity, and so our guidelines look into all of that.”
Pratt-Reid said any updates to the guidelines will be put on the website and sent through a weekly email. Any urgent updates made in regard to the COVID-19 guidelines, such as a change in the alert level, will be sent through the blue alert system.
According to the website, there is one active case of COVID-19 that had indirect contact, defined as developing symptoms or testing positive for COVID-19 after two or more days off of campus, in the university. “From the date of their symptoms, we look to see where they were. Were they on campus? Were they off campus? Who were they around?” Pratt-Reid said. “We do a very deliberate contact tracing to make sure we have included any potential cases that may have come in contact with that individual.”
Pratt-Reid said the student was on campus with limited access to buildings before testing positive.
“We count, from the date of their symptoms or test, 14 days. They may have recovered much quicker. They may have had no symptoms, but we have to go for 14 days. If everything is good after 14 days, we consider that a non-active case,” Pratt-Reid said.
If any student, staff or faculty personnel were to test positive, Pratt-Reid said they would be sent to housing specifically made for quarantining positive cases.
“If somebody is positive, we know they probably became infectious about four days earlier. So, they must quarantine for 10 days.” she said. “If they are somebody who maybe came in contact with that person, they must quarantine for 14 days because it takes about four days to become infectious.”
Students, staff or faculty who were in contact with the positive case will quarantine in their current living situation. Pratt-Reid said testing is available at the Campus Clinic.
“It is best if they call. They always have to wear a mask. We are here Monday through Friday. We have extended hours and weekend hours at our other clinics in the city, but our phone is always open and available if they’ve got a question,” Pratt-Reid said.
Pratt-Reid said students, staff and faculty all need to take COVID-19 and the EOC’s guidelines seriously.
“It’s a virus that we really have to highly respect and that we have to adjust to our new norms, which are wearing masks and hopefully being able to keep the spread of this down,” she said. “We’re getting ready, in a month, to get into flu season, so as we are very vigilant with COVID, we need to stay vigilant with all the other seasonal illnesses that come about as well.”
Colton Tompkins, film junior, said the university has integrated the guidelines into campus life well, but enforcing the guideline will be tough.
“There’s not much you can do when it comes to housing, which I think is just going to make the situation worse,” Tompkins said. “Kids are just going to be in their room, no matter what. You can’t control what they do in their own spaces, and you shouldn’t be able to, but once someone gets it, then their roommates are going to get it and it’s going to spread from there.”
Tompkins said the university has been very transparent with their guidelines for coming back to campus and on-campus behavior.
“I think they have been extremely clear with all of the emails,” Tompkins said. “That and the Zoom conferences they had over the summer have been effective in answering the more basic questions.”
However, Tompkins said the university’s plans for if a student gets COVID-19 have been unclear.
“The plans for coming back to campus and the plans for how you should behave on campus have been really clear, but contingency plans, like ‘what if somebody does get COVID, then what are we going to do,’ those plans have not been transparent. I don’t even know if they exist, which is a little concerning,” he said. “It seems like they are just going to cross that bridge when they come to it, which doesn’t seem like a good plan.”
For more information on the EOC’s guidelines to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 on campus, go to www.okcu.edu/main/coronavirus/.
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