photo by: Conner Mitchell/Journal-World

COVID-19 protocols adorn a doorway on the University of Kansas campus.

Three days ahead of an unprecedented fall semester at the University of Kansas, a university spokesperson confirmed to the Journal-World on Friday that KU would share “timely public health information” about outbreaks of COVID-19 that arise on campus, but a lot of the specifics of KU’s plan aren’t yet clear.

The newspaper reported Wednesday evening, and KU confirmed Thursday morning, that 89 of the roughly 7,800 people tested in the KU community since Aug. 7 had tested positive for the respiratory virus. Of those, 87 positives came from the 5,116 students tested, and 61 of those were identified as students belonging to a fraternity or sorority.

Much information about that data — namely, how many of the tested students were a part of KU’s greek life system and where the positive cases were located — is still unknown. However, KU spokesperson Erinn Barcomb-Peterson confirmed that in the future, the university will use several platforms to share information with the public.

“Using a combination of email, text messaging, social media and various KU webpages — depending on the circumstances — we will coordinate with local health partners to share timely public health information,” she said in an email.

What exactly that coordination will look like, though, is also unclear.

Ashley Jones-Wisner, a spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, told the Journal-World on Friday that Douglas County officials were not releasing the locations of COVID-19 outbreaks, and that they were “not clear what KU’s plan was in terms of announcing anything.”

Some other universities are saying that federal law requires them to use their emergency alert systems for COVID-19 messaging. For instance, the University of North Carolina is releasing alerts to those who remain on its campus — a decision it said was required under the federal Clery Act, which mandates that public universities immediately notify their campus communities of emergency situations.

The Clery Center, the organization which carries on the mission of the law’s original intent, also recommended to universities in March that they issue emergency alerts related to COVID-19 cases. Barcomb-Peterson did not address whether KU had made a similar determination that such alerts were necessary to comply with the Clery Act.

The university is scheduled to release new testing data on Tuesday.

When KU finalized its public health policies earlier this week, it told students there would be a “zero-tolerance policy” for those found to be violating rules such as wearing a mask at all times and not hosting large gatherings or parties. Almost immediately after that communication was distributed, photos circulated around social media of students congregating on campus and around sorority and fraternity houses — many of which were timestamped the same day.

Asked whether the university was aware of the photos and the groups involved, as well as whether any punishment would be handed down, Barcomb-Peterson demurred.

“We continue to communicate with students about the crucial role they play in keeping our community healthy. This includes providing them guidance on how to stay safe — i.e. wear a mask, maintain physical distance from others – and helping them understand that the decisions they make as individuals impact the entire community,” she said. “Additionally, we encourage students to step up if they see a classmate who isn’t doing the right thing and help that classmate understand that their decisions impact the whole university.”

KU on Friday also released a form for students to confirm whether they had completed the mandatory COVID-19 testing. Users must be a KU student to access the form, but Nicole Asbury, a KU student and the editor of the campus newspaper, the University Daily Kansan, tweeted a screen recording that showed her completing the form.

Card

It asked the user only a yes or no question of whether they had completed their test before the form was complete, and it didn’t appear to have any mechanisms to prove whether the student had actually completed their mandatory test. Barcomb-Peterson confirmed for the Journal-World Friday afternoon that KU does have the ability to see which students have completed testing.

“While the form provides an extra layer of accountability to the process, this system relies largely on the responsibility and integrity of our population,” she said. “We’ve been pleased to see that so many of our students, faculty and staff who will be present on campus have taken this responsibility seriously during the days leading up to the first day of class and have committed to completing the testing process.”

It’s still unclear what happens if a KU student doesn’t complete the university’s intake testing for the virus.

KU’s fall semester begins Monday.