USC notified members of Marshall School of Business and of McCarthy Honors Residential College via email Thursday evening about potential exposure in two university buildings due to a confirmed case of COVID-19.
“We are contacting you because we have recently received information about a confirmed case of COVID-19 from an individual who regularly had contact in Hoffman Hall at the USC Marshall School of Business and who is a former resident of McCarthy Honors Residential College,” USC Student Health and COVID-19 Response Team wrote in the email.
The email was sent to faculty, staff and students of USC Marshall School of Business and residents and staff of McCarthy Honors Residential College.
According to the email, the last date the person was on campus was March 13.
“The individual has recovered and is living off-campus,” the email added.
The email asked recipients to begin self-isolation if they develop symptoms.
“Faculty and staff should contact their health care providers,” the email reads. “Students should contact Student Health at 213-740-9355 or go to http://usc.edu/myshr and make a TeleHealth appointment for respiratory symptoms.”
USC Student Health stated that students in Los Angeles who need location assistance in self-isolation should contact the COVID-19 hotline at 213-740-6291 or email covid19@usc.edu.
In a weekly press briefing via Zoom Friday afternoon, USC Chief Health Officer Sarah Van Orman said the person was not tested at USC’s health system.
“The reason why there was such as a delay between when notification went and the person was on campus is it’s something we just found out about,” she said. “But we are committed to notifying people when we know.”
Some Marshall students told Annenberg Media Thursday evening that they did not receive the email. Van Orman said the university will look into the email list. Marshall sent another school-wide email notification to its students Friday morning, Annenberg Media later learned.
Van Orman also said that USC does not know the source of infection for this case. She added that there’s a widespread community transmission in the United States right now.
“While international travel or exposure to someone else who has tested positive are still important risk factors, those are becoming less and less important as more and more cases that we are going to be seen nationally are related to community transmission,” she said.
In the Friday press briefing, Van Orman added that for this case, the period of observation of 14 days is over as the person’s last date on campus was March 13.
She declined to share more information about the case due to privacy.
A USC Student Health spokesperson told Annenberg Media on March 25 that the definition of close contact exposure is staying “ten minutes or longer within six feet” with infected people.
Annenberg Media spoke to the individual who tested positive. The person wished to remain anonymous. Because it’s related to medical privacy, Annenberg Media honors the request, following our ethics guideline. Per the interviewee’s preference for protecting their information, Annenberg Media uses “they/them/their” to refer to this person in our following reporting.
The individual is a USC Marshall student. They told Annenberg Media via a phone call interview that they flew from Los Angeles to New Jersey on the morning of March 14. A lot of people were coughing and sneezing at the airport, and then they had a “severe headache” after they got off the flight.
“That weekend was just really bad headache, I guess it felt like a rubber band was squeezing my head, but it was just a headache, no fever,” they said. “And then, during the week, I had a fever.”
The student went to a hospital in New Jersey on March 16 to get tested for COVID-19.
“They said they would let me know in three to four days what the results were, but they didn’t tell me until the 23rd, which is a whole seven days later,” they said.
While waiting for the result, the student took a flight back to Los Angeles because the hospital told the individual that the person was “fine” and “okay” as their fever had already subsided, according to the student. With no breathing problems, the student was only having a runny nose and cough, “but not that much.”
“I called [the hospital] on Thursday and Friday (March 19 and 20) to ask for my results and they told me that if they didn’t reach out to me, it was because I was fine,” the student stated. “So I went on like normal, thinking like I was okay, but then they called telling me that I’m positive. But at that point, I’ve already flown back to LA.”
The student said after they were back in LA, they did not go on campus at all and are currently in self-quarantine as direct by the New Jersey health department.
On March 23rd, the student had an appointment on Telehealth with a doctor from USC Student Health about things unrelated to the coronavirus. During the exchange, the student told the doctor that they tested positive for COVID-19. That’s how USC first learned about the confirmed case, according to the student, who soon received phone calls from USC doctors and officials.
The student told Annenberg Media that their experience with USC was not good, and the individual was not happy with USC’s attitude.
According to the Marshall student’s recount, they were asked by USC that “Oh, you got on a plane after that? And you risked infecting other people?”
“Like honestly, they were really rude to me. Like it’s kind of mean. I am staying at home. I don’t want to get anyone sick,” the student said. “I was also very sick. I was in pain myself. I feel like I was being treated like I was purposely trying to offend someone or something.”
The Marshall student said USC did not provide them any advice on medicines and other resources, including checking up on them for emotional support.
“They basically hadn’t given me any help at all,” the student said. “I’m from New Jersey so all my family live over there and I’m here [in LA] all by myself without any support.”
The Marshall student, who has recovered now, said previously, they were extremely tired and sick but still had to attend classes remotely. They were scared to tell their professors because of the potential stigma and sensation surrounding it, hoping USC would offer more support and guidance to students who test positive for COVID-19.
USC’s notification email mentioned Hoffman Hall because the student worked there.
“I work in Hoffman Hall, and I was here on the Friday before I left,” they said. “But I didn’t have any symptoms when I was there.”
The student said USC did not consult with them before sending out the notification email and wished the university would have informed them before the email was sent. The email has been bothering the student because people are not sensitive to the matter.
“I understand that [USC] had to do that, but people in my classes were talking about it, going like ‘did you hear that somebody in McCarthy has it?’ and making jokes, and people were doing that even in the group chats,” they said. “People don’t realize it’s me until I had to go say something.”
The student thinks USC should send a community-wide email to remind people to be respectful, understanding and sensitive during this time.
Annenberg Media reached out to USC about the student’s experience and has received a university statement.
While we are not able to comment on individual patient cases for privacy reasons, we can provide the following clarification.
When we learn of a potential exposure, we have an obligation to notify faculty, staff, and students who may have been exposed. We do so using broad details of where and when the potential exposure took place, while still providing specific audiences with enough information to help determine if they may have had an exposure.
Support services are widely shared with the community, including the usc.edu/coronavirus website, the hotline number, 213-740-6192, and the email address covid19@usc.edu that have received and responded to thousands of messages during this disruption.
The university has created emergency housing for students needing temporary self-isolation due to respiratory symptoms or risk; extended administrative leave to employees to help alleviate financial distress; arranged for respite housing for health care workers in need of accommodations between shifts of patient care; created low-cost food pickup for local community and USC community members; and is in the process of evaluating other extended support for the many individuals impacted by the disruptions.
USC Student Health services, both medical and mental health, are open and available to students living in Los Angeles, and has extended services through TeleHealth. In addition, Campus Support and Intervention, uscsupport@usc.edu, is available to students, faculty, staff, and parents to provide the best information, support, and options available for complex issues in relation to university resources.
Additionally students in need can contact the Basic Needs Office (https://seip.usc.edu/studentbasicneeds/) for food and housing support. Students who email basicneeds@usc.edu will be contacted within 24 hours.
In the Friday Zoom press meeting, Van Orman said the goal of “assisting housing relocation” is to provide students who need self-isolation a single room without roommates.
As of March 28, there are 1804 laboratory confirmed cases and 32 deaths in Los Angeles County, including Long Beach and Pasadena, according to the LA County Department of Public Health.
USC Student Health is asking people who have respiratory symptoms (cough, fever, difficulty breathing, congestion) to stake at home and call 213-740-9355 (WELL) or make an appointment online at usc.edu/myshr. People who are waiting to be tested or waiting for their test results should practice strict self-isolation.
Here’s a guide of what to do provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for people who tested positive for COVID-19.
According to guidance from the CDC, people with COVID-19 who are in home isolation may not necessarily have a test to determine if they are still contagious. The decision to stop home isolation should be made in consultation with their healthcare provider and state and local health departments.
The USC Student Health spokesperson confirmed to Annenberg Media that they are following the CDC guidelines above.
Van Orman explained via Zoom that the vast majority of transmissions occur during the time when someone is having a fever or actively coughing or sneezing.
“That’s why that criteria [of discontinuing self-isolation] is adopted in that way because we know the resolution of symptoms is such an important indicator for the decrease of infectiousness,” the chief health officer said. “The reality is in the United States right now, there is not enough access to adequate testing to test people negative to get them out of isolation.”
She added that from a public health standpoint, it’s a continuing struggle with testing access and widespread testing “is just not available.”
On March 20, Los Angeles County health officials advised doctors to test patients only if a positive result could change how they would be treated.
This week, Los Angles City announced that COVID-19 tests are “strictly limited to residents of Los Angeles who are in the most high-risk categories and most vulnerable.” Individuals eligible for testing at this time include people with symptoms who are 65 and older, people with symptoms who have underlying chronic health conditions and people who are subject to a mandatory 14 day quarantine period due to a confirmed COVID-19 exposure (with more than 7 days of quarantine remaining).