The past few weeks, USC has seen a low positivity rate on campus. But there are concerns of an outbreak following Halloween and next week’s game day. Sarah Van Orman is USC’s Chief Health Officer.
We did actually have five cases this week right and you know the week before we had one. And so we are, you know, we don’t know if this is a trend yet. But what we have seen is or what we’re concerned about you know as we start to see numbers in LA start to creep up, it’s only going to take, you know, a slight bit of mixing in our student population, a slight uptick of cases.
And she says if there are a lot of gatherings over this next week… USC could easily slip into an outbreak situation right before finals and the holidays. She says it’s imperative students continue to practice social distancing.
We recommend that if you’re getting together with people that you do it outdoors that you do it with masks on, you do it in small groups.
And she says everyone needs to be thinking of others.
We are in a way, asking students to, to think of others, to think of that You actually are part of the public health solution... that your actions, what you do, actually directly will affect the number of people who might end up hospitalized, or passing away from this virus in our county and that feels very distant, it feels completely unrelated. But it actually matters.
So Trojans, enjoy the end of spooky season, but remember to stay safe.