The San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) confirmed Friday an additional 120 confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases within San Diego's State University's on-and-off student campus population.
The additional cases bring the total number of confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases of students to 184 since the start of the semester on Aug. 24, university officials said on Friday.
The county also said it is investigating multiple clusters of COVID-19 cases within the university community among students, which includes the previously announced off-campus outbreak on Sept. 2.
Fourteen distinct groups have been identified within different locations, and some of the groups may be determined to be outbreaks, SDSU said.
SDSU said 150 students are currently quarantined on campus; no information was given on the number of students quarantined off campus.
None of the cases under investigation are related to on-campus educational activities such as classes or labs. No SDSU faculty, staff, visitors or vendors have been reported as having tested positive since the start of the fall semester.
“Testing alone and testing once isn’t enough," SDSU president Adela de la Torre said on Friday. "We need to have an environment that allows students to understand we want them to be proactive in testing, we want to work with the county, and we want to have the opportunity to use educational messages that our students need to listen to, to change their behavior. And if we aren’t able to do this, the plague of parties we see around campus will not stop."
On Wednesday, SDSU paused all in-person classes and athletics after a spike in COVID-19 cases on campus.
The university plans to reassess the situation in four weeks on whether to resume in-person learning. Athletics will be paused for a two week period.
Efforts were under way on- and off-campus to enforce state and county public health orders, said Luke Wood, San Diego State's vice-president for student affairs and campus diversity.
As of Friday, the university has issued 457 student COVID-19 policy violations. Wood said there are consequences to those who violate COVID-19 policies, ranging from suspension to, in some cases, expulsion. Out of the 457 violations, 285 have gone through adjudication. Eight organizations have also been issued notices of investigation.
SDSU started the fall semester on Aug. 24. Most classes were being held online, but about 200 of them require hands-on instruction and were being held in-person with safety measures in mind, the school said. Last week, members of the Interfraternity Council at SDSU voted to hold all events virtually to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.
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Testing is available to students at SDSU's drive-up site located in parking lot 17B at 6200 Alvarado Road. The school will offer 400 tests per day through Saturday. The location will close and reopen on Tuesday, Sept. 8, as a no-appointment, walk-up site offering 500 tests a day Monday through Friday.
