SDSU Extends Stay-At-Home Order Amid Rising COVID-19 Cases

Speaker 1: 00:00 San Diego state university has been forced to backtrack on it's plans to reopen some in-person classes. This semester, after nearly 300 students tested positive for COVID-19 SDSU has issued a stay at home order. Meanwhile, questions are being raised about UC San Diego's plan to bring students back in the fall. Joining us as Gary Robbins reported with the San Diego union Tribune. Who's been tracking university reopenings in San Diego. Welcome Gary. Thank you. So fill us in first of all, on what SDS use approach is now following the revelations earlier this week, that hundreds of students had tested positive Speaker 2: 00:35 On Saturday, San Diego state decided to essentially lock down students in their dorms. They have about 2,600 students in dorms and all of them were told to stay at home, stay in the dorms. Um, they could only leave for central things like food and medical supplies. And perhaps even to exercise the idea there was that they're trying to, um, control an outbreak. Um, within a week's time, they went from having 64 infections infections among students to 286. Now on Monday night, they extended the lockdown until September. I believe it's 14. So it was about, they extended it for a full week. So those students will be, you know, not be able to go very far for the next week. They've also asked students who are living in housing near campus to do the same thing. I'm not sure how they're going to enforce that, but, um, San Diego state's, um, on campus students are essentially in lockdown right now. Speaker 1: 01:29 Do you have a sense of, of how many of those students are actually staying on campus and how many maybe go? Speaker 2: 01:34 I don't know. I talked to one student last night. Um, Caitlin Robinson, what she said was if I'm moving back into the dorm last night, was that she thought what the university was doing with sensible, because they're trying to get the number of new daily cases down. And by limited limiting the amount of places that students can mingle, uh, that, that might get at it. The university has had a really bad problem. Um, you know, during the weekend, when they were moving in just before classes started and during the following weekend, I spent a lot of time on Kanjet campus at night, watching students. And I saw hundreds of them just not social distancing in any way or wearing mouse. They would be standing in big groups outside Trujillo's where many of them eat, uh, or in front of dorms or over by senior PA ponchos or Padres, you know, the typical places and on the science streets like Rockford and Mary Lane, um, big parties, no mass, no social distancing. Speaker 1: 02:31 Well bearing in mind that it looks like none of the COVID cases have been traced back to academic schedules. Do you think that this is more the fault of students not social distancing and wearing masks, or is it the fault of the university for bringing students back too soon? Speaker 2: 02:47 I think it has to do with a lot of different things. Um, let's talk about students for a minute. Um, you know, across the United States, 51,000 students have tested positive at more than a thousand campuses. So we have to ask ourselves why. I mean, they've been told what to do to remain safe, but yet many of them are not doing it. So I've been talking to scientists and psychologists about that, and they say, one thing to keep in mind is that you're dealing with 18 to 22 year olds. And in those people, many of those students just have not fully developed emotionally in their brains, particularly in the amygdala and the part of the brain that has to do with reasoning and consequence. So in many people, the brain doesn't fully develop until a person is 25 years old. You also have the exasperations factor, these students, so generally didn't have high school graduations. Speaker 2: 03:35 They didn't get to have problems. Many of them weren't even able to get jobs over the summer. So by the time they got to college in the fall, they were really exasperated and wanted to blow off some steam. So I think that you're seeing some of that as well. And I think some of it is mixed messaging. We've talked to college presidents locally and they say, you know, kids look at the news and they see that some people are refusing to wear a mask and others are doing it in a diligent way. And it's a mixed message. So some students just adopt the idea of not wearing them. So you have all of these factors and then you have the university's trying to cope with it. San Diego state university and UC San Diego have worked incredibly hard to be ready for this. Um, the educational materials that they've produced a really clear and thoughtful, um, San Diego state Brock brought their students back in the dorms, you know, by phasing them in and by having them sign documents, acknowledging that these students will, you know, a Bay, the roles, um, they've had a lot of medical people on hand to deal with it. Speaker 2: 04:38 And UC San Diego is just about to do the same thing. So the campuses have been, I'm trying, but it just may be that you're dealing with human nature here. That's very difficult to control. And a virus has that is very easily spread. Speaker 1: 04:53 Well, we've been talking mostly about SDSU so far, but moving to UCS D a an open letter signed by 600 faculty staff and students is calling on the university. It's calling the university's plans to reopen quote negligent and arrogant. First of all, what were the university's plans for reopening? Speaker 2: 05:12 They have a plan called return to learn, and it has a lot of components. One of them is bringing back about 75 undergraduates and putting them in very highly socially distanced dormitories and testing them a great deal. So for example, if I was a student and I was showing up in a couple of days, you know, as soon as I walked on campus, they would test me on the spot before even letting me into the dormitory. Uh, the results would be delivered within 24 hours and in many cases as little as 12 hours. So if they found someone who had tested positive, they would put them in isolation, in other buildings on campus right away, or have them go into some place off campus where they could isolate say with family, they would repeat that test are in 12 to 16 days. The idea is that if I show up campus today, I may not be showing any Sam symptoms and I might have say, become infected or a day or two earlier. Speaker 2: 06:04 And the incubation period lasts up to 14 days. So they want to make sure they're catching everybody just because you don't test positive when you move in, doesn't mean you're not going to test positive within a couple of weeks. Then the idea is that throughout the semester, you would test students every two weeks and that students would, um, uh, test themselves in a sense by reviewing themselves for daily symptoms, if they were going to be on campus at all. And the same goes with anybody that comes to campus, who is, um, faculty or staff. So it's pretty comprehensive. Speaker 1: 06:35 How are university officials responding to the open letter? Speaker 2: 06:39 They gave us a statement and we're just, they reiterated that. They thought that their, um, um, program was actually very strong. And I talked to one of the doctors that is most responsible for responsible for this plan at, um, UC San Diego, dr. Angela Sotia. She believes that they could control an outbreak because they would test them so fast. And so thorough, uh, thoroughly. Now the people who signed the letter don't agree on that. Speaker 1: 07:02 So finally, what is a student who is scheduled to start a new academic year supposed to do right now, Speaker 2: 07:11 Sarah expected to roll a dice. Um, if they're going to be living on campus, I have to know, um, that there is a possibility that they'll get a stay at home order or that they'll be sent home. Now, there is also possibility that everything will go fine and that the university will control outbreaks. And it will be a fairly normal experience. As far as living in the dormitories. What will be different is the fact that only about 12% of students will have in person classes. Most of the classes will be taught online. The reason that they're bringing so many kids to campus is that a lot of their students aren't from Southern California, they're from other parts of the state and the United States. And particularly overseas, they need a place to live. A lot of these students are going to be sitting in dorms and looking out windows at classroom buildings that are essentially empty most of the time, because most things are going to be on line. So it's going to be a very weird experience. However you cut it, Speaker 1: 08:05 Gary. Thanks for your reporting. We've been speaking with Gary Robbins of the San Diego union Tribune. Speaker 2: 08:21 Uh,