Cal/OSHA opens inspection into Cal Poly after COVID cases pop up during summer program
Within a few days of the start of Cal Poly’s Quarter Plus summer school program on Aug. 11, a student tested positive for COVID-19.
News first spread through word of mouth. Students told each other, then students told teachers.
But it wasn’t until two full days after the coronavirus-positive student attended an on-campus class that university employees were notified by the chair of the Communication Studies Department that they were potentially exposed to the virus.
Employers, not department chairs, who receive notice of a potential exposure to COVID-19 within their workplace are required by law to notify employees within one business day of the notice.
In Cal Poly’s case, the proper official to notify employees of a workplace exposure to COVID-19 is a representative from the university’s Environmental Health and Safety Department.
After receiving an anonymous complaint on Thursday morning, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) “opened an inspection” into Cal Poly, according to Jeanne-Mairie Duval, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Industrial Relations.
“Cal/OSHA contacted the university this afternoon, and Cal Poly is providing all appropriate information and assistance,” the university’s director of media relations, Matt Lazier, told The Tribune in an email Tuesday.
This year, a total of 323 students and 21 instructors are participating in the Quarter Plus program, which provides incoming first-year students a four-week opportunity to take summer classes. Of those, 207 are taking in-person classes.
At least three students have reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 so far during the program, according to university President Jeffrey Armstrong.
Cal Poly employees told The Tribune that the university appeared to have processes for reporting coronavirus exposures in place at the beginning of this year’s Quarter Plus. However, the employees said, those processes were confusing, hard to follow and devoid of empathy for those involved when there is a positive case.
The employees said the lack of coherent procedures and clear guidance caused Cal Poly students to not disclose positive COVID-19 tests, and teachers were unsure where to turn if they heard rumors of positive cases.
Most employees spoke to The Tribune anonymously about their concerns out of fear of retribution from the university.
Neal MacDougall, the faculty rights chair for the California Faculty Association’s Cal Poly chapter, said the Quarter Plus program seemed to be “off the radar” for Cal Poly administrators who were developing the university’s COVID-19 safety protocols.
MacDougall participated in talks between university administrators and Cal Poly lecturer John Patrick and another lecturer in his role as a union representative.
In those talks, MacDougall said, “They (the administrators) admitted that their processes didn’t work, and their argument was, ‘Everything that we’re developing, the processes we’re developing, were for the fall.’ They weren’t expecting a problem during the summer.”
Cal Poly president ‘confident’ about safety of campus
Armstrong said that, although the university is concerned about the COVID-19 Delta variant and increasing coronavirus case numbers locally, there does not appear to be any indication of COVID-19 transmission in the classrooms.
“I am very confident of our measures and steps that we took last year and what we’re doing even more this year in order to provide a safe environment,” Armstrong said in an interview Monday with The Tribune.
“Our focus, first and foremost, is on the health and safety of our students and employees and the community overall. So we’ve developed programs that are aimed at keeping the campus community safe,” he said. “And, really, on campus, in a classroom our medical advisors continue to tell us that it is one of the safest places to be in the county.”
Last school year, Cal Poly housed about 4,500 students in on-campus housing, and about 10% of classes were held in person. A little more than 2,000 students tested positive for COVID-19 during the academic year.
This academic year, Cal Poly plans to house about 8,000 students in on-campus housing and have about 85% of classes be taught in person.
Cal Poly is requiring students to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before coming to its San Luis Obispo campus. If they are not vaccinated, students are required to be tested for the virus twice weekly, according to Armstrong.
About 91% of Cal Poly students enrolled in fall classes have indicated to the university that they are fully vaccinated, a number Armstrong said he’s hopeful will continue to rise.
All students must submit proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken up to 72 hours before going on campus for the first time.
Additionally, the university requires everyone to wear masks while indoors.
“I think we’re very well prepared” for fall, Armstrong said.
COVID-19 safety measures at Cal Poly
Cal Poly is currently allowing symptomatic students, regardless of vaccination status, to be tested on campus through its Campus Health and Wellbeing health center. Beginning Aug. 31, non-vaccinated students are tested twice weekly through the university’s saliva-based surveillance testing program.
Should a student test positive, Campus Health and Wellbeing notifies the university’s Environmental Health and Safety office, which then must notify all those who are deemed a “close contact” with that COVID-19-positive individual, according to Lazier.
“Close contact is defined as being within 6 feet (of the COVID-19-positive individual) for a cumulative 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period, regardless of whether either individual wore a mask, within the individual’s infectious period,” Lazier told the Tribune via email.
If an exposed individual is unvaccinated, they are required to quarantine for 10 days and monitor themselves for symptoms.
Fully vaccinated individuals who were exposed and are not exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 are not required to quarantine.
Both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals should get tested three to five days after exposure to the novel coronavirus, Lazier wrote.
In the case that an individual begins exhibiting symptoms or tests positive for COVID-19, they are required to isolate for 10 days, regardless of vaccination status.
Cal Poly has 62 isolation and quarantine beds available on campus, three of which are occupied as of Sept. 1, according to the university’s COVID-19 reporting dashboard.
If a student tests positive for COVID-19 in an off-campus testing site, the university may or may not be notified depending on whether a student identifies themselves as a Cal Poly student, or if it is deemed there was no “significant exposure” to anyone on campus, according to Lazier.
If an employee is notified of a confirmed positive COVID-19 test, “they may contact Environmental Health and Safety in order to trigger an exposure investigation process,” Lazier wrote.
University says it’s improving processes after Quarter Plus
Patrick said the university’s COVID-19 procedures and processes originally in place were “dry and legalistic” and lacking the key components of understanding and empathy for employees who were worried about catching the virus.
After meeting with administration officials regarding his concerns over how COVID-19 positive cases during Quarter Plus were handled by the university, Patrick said he’s “pretty hopeful that they’re really taking the situation seriously.” Patrick also said the officials promised changes would be made to smooth their processes out.
“What we discovered is that scared people need support,” he said. “And I think the university is demonstrating, at least to my satisfaction, that they’re interested in making people feel supported.”
MacDougall said the fact that the university may have listened to faculty members regarding their concerns over how COVID-19 processes were implemented was, in a sense, surprising to him.
“In the past year and a half, the university has been setting up systems, their emergency operations center, so that when they develop all these repopulation plans or these COVID plans, faculty are not involved, period,” he said. “They never really conferred with faculty to go over scenarios that could happen for those actually in classrooms.”
Armstrong said the university saw “incredible response” from students and faculty in adhering to COVID-19 rules and procedures last school year, and he’s optimistic that this fall will be successful and healthy.
“We have rules and guidelines and consequences for people who break the rules, but we can’t build a system that’s going to catch every single permutation that would allow someone to cheat the system,” the Cal Poly president said. “You can’t do it normally, and especially during a pandemic. Perfection is the enemy of good when you’re dealing with a pandemic.”
This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 10:00 AM.
CORRECTION: This article was updated with the correct number of students in isolation and quarantine beds as of Sept. 1, which is three, according to Cal Poly’s COVID-19 reporting dashboard. The error was due to a reporting mistake by University Housing.
