Despite case surges across the state, COVID-19 precautions keep IUPUI cases steady and low

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Across Indiana, COVID-19 cases are surging in large part due to the delta variant, however, IUPUI COVID-19 precautions have kept campus cases at a steady rate.

According to Indiana’s COVID-19 dashboard and IU’s COVID-19 dashboard, there were 22,583 cases in Indiana for the week of September 16, with 133 cases across all nine IU campuses, and IUPUI reporting 43 cases for the week. According to IUPUI’s own statistics, IUPUI has just shy of 30,000 students alone.

According to Aaron Carroll, Chief Health Officer for IU campuses, he is happy with how IU campuses have responded to the pandemic.

“We’ve done pretty well in a state that has a fairly low vaccination rate,” Carroll said. When asked why he believes our numbers are so low, Carroll said, “Number one is vaccinations, number two is masking and number three is testing.” 

Carroll was also asked about COVID-19 restrictions on campus and what students can expect in the coming months.

“Students should expect us to keep the trend of having low cases, but not to expect zero. As for restrictions, I certainly don’t see us becoming any more restrictive than we already are.” 

Several IUPUI students were asked about whether they felt safe on campus. student Raj Zyveri said that he does feel safe on campus and fellow student Hailey Gosno agreed.

“I don’t think there's much more IUPUI could do to help. They’ve pretty much done what they can and I do feel mostly safe on campus,” Gosno said.

IUPUI Professor Chris Lamb agreed that he feels safe on campus. “I think the COVID regulations are neither too strict nor too loose. They’re just about right,”

Overall, IUPUI has seen its campus case numbers remain steady and low, despite the fact that the state as a whole has been surging heavily in the last few weeks. According to Aaron Carroll, “We would like to get to a point where things like masks won’t even be required inside, but until we feel ready for that, we will continue to monitor the case numbers and react accordingly.”

As a reminder, all of IUPUI’s COVID-19 rules and regulations can be found at https://www.iu.edu/covid/campus-info/on-each-campus/iupui/index.html 

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