849 Columbia affiliates test positive for COVID-19, students prepare to isolate over the holidays

Upper West Side NY

04 January, 2022

3:06 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY IRIE SENTNER • DECEMBER 21, 2021, 3:19 PM Editor's Note: Some students' names have been changed to protect their privacy. As the positivity rate for COVID-19 surges to unprecedented levels in New York, 849 Columbia affiliates tested positive for the virus during the week of Dec. 13 to 19. Today, the University implemented more robust safety measures and is urging affiliates to avoid social gatherings. Although final exams conclude on Thursday, for the hundreds of students who tested positive in the last couple of days, the Christmas holiday will be spent in isolation. A University spokesperson confirmed the number of positive tests, which includes testing on the Morningside, Manhattanville, Lamont-Doherty, and Columbia University Irving Medical Center campuses, as well as tests completed outside of the Columbia Test and Trace Program. The University testing positivity rate is 4.64 percent, over double the 2.13 percent surveillance testing positivity rate. Over half of last week's positive tests came from outside of Columbia's testing program. In New York state, the virus has now broken positivity records two days in a row. On Dec. 16, the University strongly encouraged professors to move final exams online, recommended that students return home as soon as their on-campus obligations were finished, and announced plans to mandate booster vaccines for all eligible affiliates by Jan. 31, 2022. Despite the 497 percent spike in affiliate positivity, the University remains in the 'Yellow Zone' of 'low risk.' Peer institutions like Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and New York University instituted similar safety measures. Cornell University, which moved its finals online on Dec. 14, had over 1,500 cases last week. [Read more: Columbia recommends final exams move online, mandates boosters for spring 2022] The University has introduced new precautions to be immediately implemented, according to an email to the community on Monday from senior administrators. All on and off-campus Columbia-related social gatherings will require special approval, only grab-and-go food will be available with the exception of dining services for residential students remaining on campus, and all affiliates are urged to avoid all social gatherings unless they are aware of the vaccination and testing status of all attendees. When campus positivity rates spiked earlier this semester in September with 112 positive cases, many students were placed into isolation housing doubles with people who were already their roommates or suitemates. Now, several students isolating in the SIC House at 619 West 113th St. report being assigned to completely random roommates. The residence has the capacity to house 78 undergraduate students, but at least 356 undergraduate and graduate students tested positive this week. The University has "never run out of isolation beds" and has "backup plans," Senior Vice President for Columbia Health Melanie Bernitz told Spectator in September. Jess, a sophomore in Columbia College currently isolating in the SIC House, said that she believes the University's response to the surge has suffered because of how "busy" staffers are. She recalled that her friend reportedly never received food on her first day of isolation and was told to get "snacks" in the house basement, which had already run out. "I'm not thrilled to be in here. They're not treating us the best," she said. Although she was asymptomatic, Ashleigh, a junior in SEAS, decided to get tested in Lerner Hall before seeing her family this weekend. Late the next night, as she and her roommate were eating pizza in their dorm room, Ashleigh received a call from the Columbia contact tracing team informing her that she'd tested positive and would have to move into isolation housing the next morning. That night, they both slept in their masks. "At first I was really upset when I got my positive test because I knew that I would be spending the holidays in here," she said. "I feel better that I'm not alone-alone, and that I do have a roommate here and that there's other people who I know in the building. I know we're all in isolation, but at the same time, it doesn't feel like we're alone." The University could not be reached for comment at the time of publication. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.