ATHENS, Ohio — Thirty COVID-19 positive Ohio University students were allegedly violating quarantine protocol after they were found partying in an isolation hall Friday night, officials say.
These students now face disciplinary cases with the school, and they could face criminal action for their irresponsible actions which endangered building staff, officials say.
In isolation housing at the Athens campus, the students are relatively unmonitored to limit contact between infected students and university staff, a spokesperson said. However, at 11:45 p.m. Friday night a staff member entered the isolation dorm, Luchs Hall, to help a student who had gotten locked out of their room.
The scene the staff member discovered was shocking: COVID-19 positive students drinking alcohol in a common space of the dorm without masks and not practicing social distancing.
Ohio University spokesperson Carly Leatherwood said students in isolation should only be leaving their rooms to use the restroom, to pick up meals that are delivered to them, to do laundry, or to address an emergency like a health deterioration. Leatherwood said university staff were endangered by the students’ unwise decisions to congregate for what she described as a party.
“All individuals found to be in violation of the public health orders and university policy are subject to both criminal and/or university judicial proceedings,” a university statement said.
The students will have disciplinary interviews and the university’s investigation remains active. The school investigation will look into how the party was organized and how students brought alcohol for the party into the isolation dorm.
“The more serious charges would be the violation of the public health orders. And that's really something the prosecutor's office would determine on the actionability of that," Leatherwood said.
Prosecutors said they have not yet been referred the case due to the ongoing nature of the investigation. University officials conducted mandatory meetings outdoors Saturday with all 48 students who were in isolation at the time of the party.
“Ohio University is still investigating the incident. At the end of it, they could potentially refer the case file to the city prosecutor for misdemeanor charges, the county prosecutor’s office for felony charges, or straight to the university for an internal code of conduct issue,” said Meg Saunders, first assistant prosecutor in the Athens County Prosecutor’s Office.
Leatherwood said the university shared the news of the isolation hall party publicly to send the message that this type of behavior is unacceptable and to be transparent with the Athens community.
“The university is concerned that this happened because it really did put other people at risk. We have a staff member who entered the hall to assist someone who was locked out of the room. We've got the culinary services staff who deliver meals. We've got custodial service staff that go in to maintain the hall. And so, there being a situation where they're compromising the safety and security of other students, faculty, and staff is very serious," Leatherwood said.
This is the second known incident of COVID-19 positive Ohio college students knowingly participating in mass gatherings. Miami University of Ohio students, who were supposed to be isolating off-campus after testing positive for COVID-19, faced citations when a police officer ran a party host’s ID through a database for first responders that shows who has recently tested positive for the virus.
Ohio University has recorded a 6.9% cumulative positivity rate for its surveillance testing of asymptomatic students and employees, with 225 positive tests from 3,253 total tests, according to its dashboard. Testing of symptomatic individuals has resulted in 492 positive tests at the Athens campus, where 66 students are currently in quarantine and 46 are in isolation.
Three of the university's residence halls were designated as under quarantine due to infections in those communities. Ohio University is in phase two of its reopening plan, meaning it has brought back about a third of its undergraduate students to campus.
Last week Athens County had the highest 14-day occurrence of COVID-19 in the state. Gov. Mike DeWine has described Athens’ case numbers as “off the charts,” with 364.3 cases per 100,000 residents. The numbers have receded slightly in the latest update to 344.4 cases per 100,000 residents while several other counties’ outbreaks worsened. As of Tuesday, Athens remained in the top five of counties for 14-day occurrence.
Public schools in the Athens City School District, which are in a phased return to hybrid learning, are closely monitoring the outbreak at the nearby university and school officials say they will monitor if any timeline changes are needed to return to in-person instruction since the college outbreak seeped out into the community.
Ohio University students are now unable to intern with the public school district and high school students who take courses at Ohio University are asked to continue with their schooling completely virtually at this time to avoid the chance of infecting their high schools.