Better Late Than Never
It has been a very long and busy day here, so bringing you what I know.
With increasing numbers of undergraduate students moving into quarantine and isolation this week, the University has elected to give priority for hotel spaces and on-campus isolation rooms for students who are either suspected or confirmed to have COVID.
Undergraduate students who have been advised to quarantine (due to possible exposure to COVID-19) will be quarantined in place. We will work with each student to evaluate individual circumstances. We may ask students to temporarily relocate in order to separate students who need to quarantine from students who do not. (Please note, students currently in quarantine at one of the hotels will not be allowed to leave quarantine and return to their residence halls to complete their quarantine, unless they go through our declination process and return to their permanent residence under supervision of an adult).
Because of the surge in cases, contact tracing is taking a lot of time right now. We have contact tracers working 7 days a week and they are working as fast as they can. Thank you for your patience in waiting to be contact traced. We have general guidelines for quarantine on our Quarantine and Isolation website.
For students awaiting contact tracing and need to get meals, if they feel well and have no symptoms, they may get grab-and-go dining at campus dining venues (wash your hands or use hand sanitizer before touching any surfaces in the dining venue, wear a mask and maintain 6’ of distance from others). If you are not feeling well, a friend, classmate, etc. can take their student ID number and name and go to the Pit or other dining venue and bring food back for them (this is what normally happens when students have the flu, etc.).The friend can knock and drop it at their door, not give it to you face to face.
A couple quick hits: students got their Your Corona Chronicle last night; read it here. Residence Life and Housing sent a message to resident students with important reminders for those living in our residential communities.
Dr. Clinch and Dr. Ohl, who have been at the forefront of our public health efforts, have made a longform video about masks that goes into depth on questions of double masking, N-95s, etc. While it was geared towards faculty and staff (and is a bit on the clinical side), I share it in case it is helpful for families.
Finally, I want to acknowledge that this is probably the highest volume of calls and emails we’ve had at the Call Center, at the parents@wfu.edu account, and in my personal emails. Normally I would give people personalized, well-thought responses in a timely manner. That is not possible at this time (because one of my key roles is to help triage calls that come into the Call Center, since I sit on so many crisis management and COVID committees, I have a birds-eye view to a lot of the happenings). Parents and families are every bit as important to Wake Forest as you have always been. We are just focused right now on the operational needs of the campus, COVID mitigation, and most importantly, trying to provide support for your students that I cannot answer that many questions individually right now, and I am sorry for that.
This is a rapidly evolving situation and things can change quickly as we get new information. My pledge is to bring you the best info I have as quickly as I have it. Thank you for your understanding.