News: Sorority recruitment goes virtual Page 6
Opinion: President’s downplay of the virus fails citizens Page 10
Sports: Wake Forest crushes Campbell 66-14 Page 11
Life: Hanes Gallery exhibit profiles Black identity Page 19
Old Gold&Black
WAKE FOREST’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1916 VOL. 107, NO. 7
COVID-19 changes study habits on campus Due to new protocols for the use of indoors facilities, many students have migrated to other study spaces
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posed to someone with COVID-19. This way, they are able to immediately quarantine those individuals to lower their risk of transmitting infection to others during the time they would be contagious, which Clinch notes can be two days before symptoms develop. “The ability to rapidly identify people with infection, [isolate] those individuals, identify their contacts and place them in quarantine helps us to ‘box in’ the virus and reduce transmission,” Clinch said. She also encouraged students to continue reporting positive COVID-19 tests to SHS so they can guide them on appropriate isolation and begin contact tracing. Though the containment of the virus should come as positive news to the university community, officials warn that students should not become complacent in their protective efforts while the virus is still present at Wake Forest. “While it is tempting to ‘let our guard down,’ doing so would increase the number of cases in our population,” Clinch said. “As we have seen from other universities, cases of COVID-19 can rise quickly if we are not careful.”
See COVID-19, Page 5
See ZSR, Page 4
? Nov. 24 Graphic by Emily Beauchamp/Old Gold & Black
On Oct. 6, the university reached the halfway point of the fall semester with the coronavirus largely under control. Despite the encouraging figures, the fate of the second half of the semester is still very much in the students’ hands.
University sees drop in coronavirus cases At the midway point of the semester, the university has stabilized an early surge in COVID-19 cases on campus BY ELIZABETH MALINE Online Managing Editor malied17@wfu.edu Following long-standing fears from students that the university might send them home at any time due to a failure to contain COVID-19, the university’s progress in managing the virus has largely diminished this possibility. As of publication, there have only been eight new confirmed positive COVID-19 cases on campus within the last two weeks. In viewing the bar graph on the COVID-19 dashboard, there is a clear downturn in the number of positive cases since the beginning of September. Vice President for Campus Life Penny Rue attributes this downturn in cases to students’ recognition of the importance of abiding by safety measures. “We are thrilled that students have really gotten the message about how to keep campus safe — wearing masks, staying six
feet apart, and washing hands frequently,” Rue said. She adds that students have been compliant with isolation and quarantine, as well as with the random testing program. The university has now conducted 2,317 asymptomatic sample tests, which have resulted in 13 total positive cases, a positivity rate of 0.6%. Among over 1,000 tests conducted in the last two weeks, there have been zero positive cases, which Rue says is “outstanding.” Dr. Joanne Clinch, clinical director for Student Health Services (SHS), echoed Rue’s statement about our community’s willingness to abide by safety measures, but also attributes the downturn to various other factors, including students’ participation in the SneezSafe symptom reporting app. “Students’ participation in using the SneezSafe app to provide information about their symptoms and/or a possible exposure to COVID-19 has allowed the Student Health Service to connect these students to care, testing and when appropriate, isolation or quarantine,” Clinch said. She adds that the university’s contact tracing system has been effective in helping to identify students who have been ex-
BY ISABELLA MASON Staff Writer masoif20@wfu.edu During the average year at Wake Forest, there seemed to be no end to a student’s study schedule. If you walked by the ZSR library’s atrium at 10 p.m. during midterms, it would normally be bustling with students studying in groups and grinding out papers. This year, however, COVID-19 has forced students to take on late-night studying in their dorm rooms due to shorter hours in the library. Freshman Anna Attal says that she spends most of her study time at ZSR on the sixth floor, where she feels the atmosphere is “productive.” Yet, due to the library’s limited working hours, she isn’t able to study there as frequently as she’d prefer. “I like the hours that ZSR is open because it pushes me to study earlier,” Attal said. “But some days, I wish the library would stay open past 10 p.m.” Sophomore Conor Metzger stated that he thought the ZSR hours “are really short” since “most people don’t start work until 10 p.m.” Both Attal and Metzger noted the importance of outside study space as an alternative to the limited library working hours, but once the weather gets colder, Attal noted that she is “worried about where [she will] study. [She] feel[s] like [she will] study more in her dorm room.” This year due to the pandemic, ZSR closes at 10 p.m. every weekday and at 5 p.m. every Friday and Saturday. Mary Beth Lock, the Associate Dean of the ZSR library, explained several reasons behind the early closure: to give custodial staff the time to go through proper sanitizing procedures, and ensure that there are enough staff working in the building. “More people are working from home than ever before, therefore it’s hard to keep people staffed around the clock,” Lock said. In previous years, the ZSR staff have worked to increase study space up to a 1,200-person capacity. This year, they had to undo a lot of the previous work, reducing that 1,200-person capacity to 400, including the new study carrels.
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