COVID-19 screening

Answer provided Aug. 15: OU Housing is planning on releasing information late next week.

Aug. 17: Were students noti ed of their (COVID-19) results before moving in?

Yes, students, OU Housing and Goddard Health Center were noti ed of results prior to moving into their assigned housing. All three steps of the Move-In process must be completed for students to move into OU Housing. Students who fail to complete the required process will be scheduled for a later move-in date. • Complete an at-home COVID-19 test. OU has partnered with Vault Health to mail students an at-home saliva based COVID-19 test to complete in advance of their arrival to campus. Students received an email during the week of July 20 with full details and instructions on how to receive and submit their COVID-19 test during OU’s two-day testing window of August 4-5 for the

Residence Halls and the Residential Colleges and August 10-11 for Traditions Square. Once students registered, testing kits were mailed and students administered home test(s) at no cost to students. • Receive a negative COVID-19 test result. Test results are emailed to students and to OU

Health Services up to four days after their test arrives at the Vault Health lab. • Complete the University’s online health screening  ve days prior to their return to campus. Students must complete this step regardless of their COVID-19 test result.

Due to a number of circumstances, students who hadn’t received results were put in direct contact with OU Housing and worked with their local healthcare provider or Goddard Health Center to receive a polymerase chain reaction test. Once a negative result was submitted to Goddard Health Center, students were cleared to move into assigned housing.

Aug. 19: Can you tell me why OU isn’t tracking positive COVID-19 cases among community members or making that information public like many other universities are?

 e university is exploring best practices for tracking and reporting COVID-19 cases.

Aug. 21: What’s on the COVID dashboard?

 e dashboard is still under development and is slated to launch near the end of next week.

Aug. 21: Recently White House reports and recommendations have been leaked in some news outlets. In one of them, Deborah Birx, one of the White House’s leading experts on the coronavirus pandemic, noted that universities which are re-opening should have some kind of contingency for “surge testing” as the semester begins. Does the university have a process in place to complement its entry testing with surge testing in the event students begin testing positive?

symptoms or who has reason to suspect they have been exposed to COVID-19 is encouraged to get tested. Goddard Health provides contact tracing on campus and administers PCR testing for anyone who is a direct contact with a person who tests positive for COVID-19. To schedule a curbside test, OU community members should call (405) 325-4441. OU is exploring possible surveillance testing on campus; however, no decisions have been made.

Aug. 21:  ose [leaked White House] reports also note some states as “red zones” for COVID-19 status. Oklahoma is one of those states. Was the university aware of this, and if so, did it play into the decision over the summer to return in-person this fall?

 e university’s Chief COVID O cer, Dr. Bratzler, and other health leaders at OU [Health Sciences Center] routinely review several reports related to COVID-19 activity in Oklahoma. Over the past three weeks, the seven-day rolling average of new cases in Oklahoma has decreased, and the percent of positive tests has plateaued with the last two weeks at less than 10 percent.  is is a metric that the university is closely watching along with case counts across the state, in Cleveland County and in the zip codes around the university.

Aug. 24: I’m reaching out to try and con rm a question we’ve been seeing about how OU student COVID-19 cases will be counted in Health Department data. Some people have heard that if an OU student tests positive for COVID-19 during the semester, it will be counted as a positive case in their home county rather than in Cleveland County. I was wondering if there’s any way you can con rm this, or let me know who might be able to con rm this? I’m attaching a screenshot for reference.

Answer provided Aug. 25: OU students who receive a positive test from Goddard Health are tracked according to their provided address. Students living in OU Housing and those who reside in Cleveland County are reported through the Cleveland County Health Department, if those individuals provide their OU Housing or Cleveland County address. If a student’s provided address is outside of Cleveland County, the data is tracked in their respective county health departments. Goddard sta encourages local addresses to be used to ensure medical communications go directly to the patient and for proper tracking and reporting. No positive cases through Goddard have been tracked out of state.

Aug. 26: Do you have a number on how many positive cases through Goddard have been tracked in counties other than Cleveland County vs. how many have been tracked in Cleveland County? I was just told by my contact at the state health department that OSU’s COVID-19 testing is counting all its student positive cases in Payne County, even if the student lists a di erent address, due to Payne County o cials expressing that they would like OSU students to be counted in Payne County. Is this something Cleveland County o cials have expressed interest in OU doing, or has it been discussed/considered at all by OU o cials?

 is is a question that will need to be clari ed through the Oklahoma State Department of Health. Goddard reports positive cases to OSDH and the State Health Department tracks positive cases by the address provided. Goddard Health Services works under the guidance of the Cleveland County Health Department for contact tracing.

_____________________________________________

COVID-19 screening:

Aug. 27: How does OU plan to enforce honest use of the COVID Screening and Reporting Tool?

 e screening tool is voluntary for those who are not directed to  ll it out as a condition for campus access, clearance or some other action requested by the university.

Under current university policy, students, faculty and sta who plan to return to campus must complete the COVID-19 Screening and Reporting Tool each time any of the following applies: 1. Absence from Campus – Employees and students who have been away from campus for any reason for seven consecutive calendar days or more must complete the COVID-19

Screening and Reporting Tool. 2. Travel – Employees and students who have traveled domestically or internationally must complete the COVID-19 Screening and

Reporting Tool unless the traveler quali es for the Commuter Process. Domestic travel is de ned as travel outside the State of

Oklahoma. 3. Close Contact – Employees and students who have had close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or who has had symptoms of COVID-19 in the last 14 days must complete the COVID-19 Screening and

Reporting Tool. 4. Experiencing Symptoms – Employees and students experiencing symptoms that could be consistent with COVID-19, such as fever, cough, shortness of breath or di culty breathing, chills, muscle pain, sore throat, recent loss of taste or smell and/or extreme fatigue, must complete the COVID-19

Screening and Reporting Tool.  ey should also contact their health care provider regarding speci c symptoms. 5. Positive Test – Employees and students who test positive for COVID-19 may not return to campus until they have been cleared by

Goddard Health Center to return. 6. Positive Household Member – Employees and students with a household member who has tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 14 days must complete the COVID-19

Screening and Reporting Tool.  e university urges all community members who plan to be on campus to take personal responsibility in adhering to OU’s COVID-19 protocols, which include the screening tool. Completion is a requirement as it relates to a condition for access, clearance or some other action requested by the university.

Yes.  e university urges all community members who plan to be on campus to take personal responsibility in adhering to OU’s COVID-19 protocols, which include the screening tool. Completion is a requirement as it relates to a condition for access, clearance or some other action requested by the university.

Aug. 27: How many people, so far, have  lled out the screening tool?

As of Aug. 25, 2020, 5,131 have  lled out the form in the last 30 days.

Aug. 27: What exactly is the policy for classrooms that are overcrowded and being provided safety glasses/goggles to make up for that? I have had several students contact me saying there are classrooms where there are too many students, making it impossible to properly distance them, but that they were provided eye protection to make up for it. I had not seen this as an o cial university plan/ policy so I wanted to double check.

 rough the Safe and Resilient Instructional Plan, OU’s goal is to provide in-person instruction to the greatest extent practical while promoting a safe and secure campus environment. Some courses are allowed to increase the number of students based on space of classrooms and location (i.e. isolated from main campus or in low tra c areas).  ese few approved courses are also required to implement additional cleaning protocols. Instructors may have students work in small groups as long as social distancing and masking are observed. If social distancing cannot be maintained, then the faculty should replace activities or move those activities to a blended course that allows for in-person instruction and online collaboration in small groups.

Aug. 27: Is there a plan or policy for group work and collaboration for in-person classes? I have also had students describe small groups working in very close proximity in in-person classes to complete group work.

Some courses (i.e. STEM labs for instance) call for additional safety protocols.  ese courses are required to have a hand washing or glove protocol, eye protection and other PPE, in addition to required masking. A limited number of laboratory courses were allowed to continue with social distancing at less than 6 feet with implementation of the additional safety protocols.

Aug. 28: As of August 28, 2020, has this [COVID-19 noncompliance incident reporting] form been sent out to all students?

Answer provided Aug. 31 by Derrick Dixon, assistant dean of students and director of the o ce of student conduct: a.  e incident reporting form that is shared under the COVID 19 resources link on our page is our General Incident Reporting form for student-related behavior, not a COVID reporting tool.  e O ce of Student Conduct utilizes Maxient, which is an online student conduct management software.  rough the general incident reporting form, OU community members (faculty, sta , and students) can submit reports that may

constitute a violation of university policy (i.e. alcohol, drugs, threatening behavior, theft, mandatory masking, etc.). Consequently, as with any university policy, whenever OU community members (faculty, sta , and students) believe that they have information that supports a student potentially violating university policy, they should utilize this reporting form to submit that information to the O ce of Student Conduct. Once that information is submitted, the O ce of Student Conduct will evaluate the information to determine if and how we should proceed. b. What this form is Not: i.  is form is not a reporting mechanism for students who believe that they are experiencing COVID 19 related symptoms, ii.  is form is not a reporting mechanism for individuals to report that they believe that someone else is experiencing COVID-19 related symptoms, iii.  is form is not designed to keep statistical data for COVID 19 related cases within the

University community. c. Any individual that is experiencing COVID 19 related symptoms, or who believes that another member of the OU community is experiencing COVID 19 related symptoms should contact the Goddard Health Center as soon as possible.

Aug. 28: How do you determine if a student is responsible for the action(s) being reported about them [in OU’s noncompliance reporting form]?

Answer provided Aug. 31 by Dixon: a. Student conduct may initiate the conduct process based on information received from any source (including the general incident reporting form outlined above), including but not limited to an individual, a university o cial, or a law enforcement agency. b. A conduct o cer reviews the information and determines whether the allegations fall within the jurisdiction of the code of conduct c. If the behavior falls within the jurisdiction of the code of conduct, the conduct o cer initiates conduct proceedings by sending a student conduct notice to the student’s o cial university email account. d.  e charged student has  ve (5) class days from the date on the student conduct notice to schedule their mandatory meeting with the conduct o cer. i. Failure to respond to the Notice will result in a hold on the student’s enrollment and a default decision will be imposed. ii. Default decisions mean that the case will be resolved in the student’s absence utilizing only the information that has been collected in the incident report and subsequent investigation iii. By failing to respond, the student waives any right to further due process e. If the charged student attends the mandatory meeting, they will have the opportunity to respond to the allegations, present any relevant information that they have, and

have any questions regarding the process answered. f.  e Conduct O cer will review all information during the mandatory meeting and determine whether the student’s behavior constitutes a violation of the code.  is determination is made utilizing the

Preponderance of the Evidence standard of proof or more likely than not.  is burden of proof is met when the conduct o cer demonstrates that there is a greater than 50% chance that a policy violation has occurred i. If the student has pending criminal charges, the case may be held in abeyance pending the outcome of court proceedings, except for conduct that causes immediate concern for the safety and/or well-being of those in the University community. ii. If a violation is supported, and the student accepts the decision, educational sanction(s) will be imposed per Section VII of the Student Rights and Responsibilities Code g. If a student disagrees that a violation of the code exists, the student may request a hearing in writing within two (2) days of the mandatory meeting

Aug. 28: What consequences are in place to occur if a student is deemed responsible for the actions reported on them [in OU’s noncompliance reporting form]?

Answer provided Aug. 31 by Dixont: Students who accept or are determined responsible for violating the university code, are issued educational sanction(s). Educational sanction(s) are designed to best help the student learn from the demonstrated behavior outlined in the incident report. Educational sanction(s) can range from a written warning to expulsion from the institution; or anything in between that can best help facilitate learning for the student (community service, re ection papers, substance abuse education, etc.)

Aug. 28: Are there consequences for larger organizations who aren’t following the rules [in accordance with OU’s noncompliance protocol]?

Answer provided Aug. 31 by Dixon: a. Please refer to question 3 & 4 [previous two questions]. b. Currently, the same process is applied to student organizations (as stated above this is not a COVID reporting tool).

Aug. 28: What happens if a false report is made (ie. someone saying something that didn’t happen or reporting something out of context) [in OU’s noncompliance reporting form]?

Answer provided Aug. 31 by Dixon: a.  e Student Rights and Responsibilities Code states that “it is the responsibility of all students who are potential parties or witnesses to an alleged violation of the Code to participate in the conduct process. Students have a duty to cooperate and discuss the incident with appropriate University o cials, adhere to stated deadlines, attend scheduled meetings, provide documentation as requested, and participate in all proceedings.”