A total of 19 Greek houses at Indiana University are under quarantine orders following positive COVID-19 tests, the university reported Tuesday.
The university added five houses to a list of facilities it started compiling last week after health officials reviewed results from new COVID-19 testing.
The university also added three houses on Monday and three on Saturday. The original list, announced Thursday, included eight houses.
READ MORE: IU Reports 14 Greek Houses Now Under Quarantine Orders
A university official said locking down those houses followed testing results that revealed COVID-19 rates far higher than in the general population.
“It's really a safety measure for the members of the houses, of course, and also for the campus at large,” IU spokesperson Chuck Carney said.
“We’ll be able to keep more contact from happening with students on campus, be able to get those students who did test positive healthy, isolate the students who need to be isolated, and also make sure that it doesn't spread among the house itself,” he said.
On Monday, the university released data from a weeklong, focused testing program separate from the arrival tests all students are required to complete.
The “mitigation testing” data showed a positivity rate of 8.1% among Greek houses, while residence halls had a positivity rate of under 2%.
“We do test more within populations that may be at more risk,” Carney said. “And we have been concerned with the Greek houses in particular because they are a different setup than our residential dorm spaces. They are more dense.”
He said that physical distancing was easier in some residential halls because of their multiple floors and the ability to house only one student per room.
“We were watchful of the Greek houses because that was a place where they might be especially prone,” Carney explained. “So, right now, those Greek houses and the members of those Greek houses may be tested a little bit more. That’s for the safety of those residents so that they can find out if they are ill right away, and also so that we can make sure that we keep the residents who may be ill away from others.”
READ MORE: 3 More Greek Houses Ordered To Quarantine Over COVID-19 Cases
Carney also pointed out that fewer than half of the Greek houses are under quarantine, and that the number of students living in them is a fraction of IU’s population. The vast majority of students are not being asked to quarantine, he said.
“We're trying to make sure that we can get control within these smaller areas where there might be more easily transmissible disease, and keep that from translating into a larger problem that hits the campus as a whole,” Carney said.
He added that IU has directed all of the Greek houses to suspend in-person organizational activities, other than dining and housing for live-in members, until at least Sept. 14. It is also asking non-Greek communal houses to do the same.
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