Quinnipiac sees a spike in COVID-19 cases
November 12, 2021
On Monday, Nov. 8, Quinnipiac University reported 30 new positive COVID-19 cases within the last seven days. This is the highest spike in cases the university has had since last semester.
According to Quinnipiac’s COVID-19 Dashboard, the university now has 32 active cases, making a total of 81 cases throughout the semester so far. Students received a community update email on Monday to notify them of this increase in cases.
Many students thought they had finally turned a corner after getting through this year’s Halloween weekend without an immediate spike in cases like last year. However, after this announcement, some students like third-year occupational therapy student Migdalia Wood fear they might have spoken too soon.
“I don’t think anyone wants to go home, I don’t think anyone wants to get quarantined on campus or lose this important part of student experience; which is socializing and being around everyone, which is a huge aspect we definitely lost during COVID,” Wood said.
During this time last year, many students were already packing up to go home for the fall after a Halloween party caused COVID-19 to spread like wildfire on campus.
“It definitely is concerning because around this time everything kept spiking and spiking and then we went to orange alert, and red alert, so I’m really hoping that this spike can be like a wake-up call for people,” Wood said.
However, Senior Medical Advisor for COVID-19 Dr. David Hill is confident that we will not have a repeat of last fall.
“It won’t lead to hundreds of cases, it’s led to tens of cases but that’s because the bulk of our community is vaccinated,” Hill said.
Along with Dr. Hill, many students like first-year film, television and media arts student Brendan Kelly assume that the root of these positive cases is once again from social gatherings surrounding Halloween.
“I heard it’s because of Halloween, everyone went out and was a little more social than normal and didn’t really follow any of the protocols,” Kelly said.
Despite the town of Hamden reversing its mask mandate on Friday, Oct. 29, Hill says that after this spike in cases on campus, the university does not plan on changing its mask requirement. Administrators will be “doubling down on wearing masks” to continue keeping students, faculty and staff safe for the rest of the semester.
Hill says his main goal is to keep students on campus for as long as possible.
“If we want to have 3 [more] weeks, let’s be careful over Thanksgiving, let’s not bring COVID back to our community,” Hill said.
No further COVID-19 restrictions have changed on campus.
