Cal Poly spends thousands of dollars to isolate sick students in SLO hotels. Here’s how much
Cal Poly has spent more than $100,000 in extra emergency COVID-19 isolation measures after a sudden spike in cases forced the university to again house sick students in off-campus hotels.
In just the first week of the university’s winter quarter, which began on Jan. 3, the university recorded more than 1,000 positive COVID-19 tests among students — or roughly 4% of the student population — as the omicron variant spread through the county.
The influx of COVID-positive students quickly filled the university’s available isolation beds, and many others were left to isolate in their dorm rooms with COVID-negative roommates, according to students who spoke with The Tribune.
In an attempt to ease the bottleneck of students needing to isolate after testing positive for COVID-19, Cal Poly gave out two dozen $400 University Store gift cards, for a total of $9,600, to students who volunteered to isolate at their homes instead of on campus, according to university records provided to The Tribune.
Then, two days after the winter quarter began, Cal Poly reached out to three hotels in San Luis Obispo to house COVID-positive students.
Cal Poly has housed a total of 132 students at the Lamplighter Inn, Sands Inn & Suites and Hotel Buena Vista during their required isolation periods. That was beyond the 62 isolation beds Cal Poly has on campus.
Each hotel has given Cal Poly a special rate, charging between about $69 to $141 per night, excluding tax.
Over the first two weeks of Cal Poly’s contract with the hotels, the university paid a total of about $97,862 to the three.
That brings the total cost of the last-minute COVID isolation measures to $107,462 to date.
Cal Poly is still paying for 66 hotel beds — meaning the bill for the COVID-19 isolation measure will grow larger.
“As the COVID-19 situation continues to evolve, we are forced to make difficult decisions around the university’s operation — all of which come with potential risks and consequences. We put a tremendous amount of consideration into these decisions and weigh a multitude of factors with the input and approval of our county Public Health officer and public health experts,” university Media Relations Director Matt Lazier wrote to The Tribune in an email. “As always, the university’s priority remains providing students with the most robust learning and living experience possible while also keeping the health and safety of all campus community members top of mind.”
Hotel manager explains how student isolation works
Sarah Loughry, the general manager of Sands Inn & Suites — which rented out 13 rooms to Cal Poly for a discounted nightly rate of $82 — said she was happy to house the sick students as long as they followed the strict isolation guidelines and stayed in their rooms away from the other guests.
“Because it is our slow season, for the most part, these are rooms that probably would have gone unoccupied during the week,” Loughry said. “If it was in the middle of summer during our busy season, when the rates are much higher, we would not have been able to do such a low rate for Cal Poly in order to not negatively impact our revenue.”
Loughry noted that Cal Poly was responsible for the students during their isolation stay. The university delivered the students their meals and ensured they did not need to leave to go to classes, she said.
After the sick students leave, the rooms stay vacant for 48 hours, Loughry said, before new guests are allowed to check in. That’s to ensure they are completely safe to enter before staff sanitize and clean the space.
“A lot of guests seem leery of staying at a hotel if there are people quarantining there,” Loughry said. “But, really, those that are quarantining come and they stay in their room. As long as people are following the guidelines for quarantining, it poses no risk at all to the other guests.”
‘They’re doing the best that they can,’ health officer said
Cal Poly admittedly had fewer isolation rooms available for sick students at the start of the winter quarter compared to how many it had during the fall quarter, Lazier said.
Although Cal Poly had reportedly consulted carefully with San Luis Obispo County Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein on its winter quarter COVID plans, she told The Tribune in early January that she was unaware the university had stacked students on top of each other to maximize its isolation space.
One student described to The Tribune living at the time with seven other roommates isolating in on-campus apartments initially designed to house four people total.
“Two people in a single bedroom or eight people in a four-bedroom house — that is not the policy and procedures that I understand Cal Poly to be taking,” Borenstein told The Tribune on Jan. 7. “And I have been in close touch with them and understand that they are able to do isolation quickly of everyone who tests positive. ... They’re doing the best that they can under very difficult circumstances of the biggest surge (in COVID-19 cases locally) that we’ve seen.”
This story was originally published January 27, 2022 at 9:00 AM.
