Every resident of Ohio University’s Boyd Hall was moved into quarantine Friday after almost 20 students tested positive for the coronavirus.
There are currently 94 students living in Boyd Hall as part of OU’s phased reopening plan. Of those students, 19 tested positive for COVID-19.
The 19 students were immediately moved into isolation dorms, according to a media release.
As residents of the same hall, the other 75 students in Boyd are considered “close contacts” who share living spaces and activities. Housing and Residence Life is working to assign those other students to another quarantine hall in accordance with COVID-19 protocols.
Back South buildings, such as Hoover, Ewing and Wray houses, may be used for any university-mandated quarantine, according to a previous Post report.
The students will be in quarantine until Oct. 21 under orders from the Athens City-County Health Department, according to the media release. They will be provided meals and other resources while in quarantine, and OU is working with the students and their professors on how the students will do their coursework remotely.
“Our students’ safety, and that of our community, is paramount in every discussion and decision that we make,” OU President Duane Nellis said in the release. “We have planned for this potential situation. And while we wish that no one is put in this situation, we are acting swiftly to get our students who are impacted by the health order into appropriate spaces and limit the chance that other students in the residence hall would contract the virus and unintentionally spread it to others.”
OU has 336 coronavirus cases reported through its COVID-19 hotline as of Friday, according to the COVID-19 dashboard.
As of Oct. 8, 20 of the university’s quarantine spaces were in use, and 48 isolation spaces were in use.
