Four on-campus sorority houses at UCF are under quarantine — Knight News has learned three houses were placed under quarantine after six positive COVID-19 tests.
“Combined, there were six positive tests among the residents of the three sorority houses,” UCF spokesman Chad Binette said in an email to Knight News. “The decisions to quarantine were made due to the level of contact with other residents identified through tracing.”
UCF placed residents of one sorority house under quarantine on Sept. 22, and two sorority houses on quarantine on Friday.
Kappa Alpha Theta and Kappa Delta are the chapter houses that UCF, in coordination with the Florida Department of Health in Orange County, placed under quarantine as a public health action. Both houses are at a reduced capacity, Binette said.
Photo by Daniel Gabriel. 
Photo by Daniel Gabriel.
Student Health Services staff has called the approximately 40 members of the two chapters who live in the houses to discuss what the quarantine means for them, Binette said.
SHS has also reached out to the leaders to see if they need assistance with getting food or other services during their quarantine period.
UCF placed Alpha Xi Delta sorority in quarantine on Sept. 22 — about 20 women live in the house, which is also at reduced capacity.
UCF also placed Delta Delta Delta placed under quarantine.
UCF said the quarantine period for the sorority is set to be complete Tuesday — it is not known at this time when the quarantine period began.
“[All four sorority houses] are all under quarantine due to positive tests, but we are not differentiating between the types of tests (random or other),” Binette said.
UCF sent its first wave of emails to 100 random students within the Greek community requiring participation in a COVID-19 test or the possibility of being turned in to student conduct on Sept. 17.
Knight News learned on Sept. 22 that a student can deny the test and will only face student conduct if they fail to quarantine for two weeks.
Binette said students are required to mostly stay in their rooms while under quarantine, but are permitted to pick up food deliveries or other essentials from the chapter house entrance.
Individuals must wear a face covering and obey physical distancing while outside of their rooms, he said.
UCF’s weekly dashboard update shows 94 new positive COVID-19 cases, with 41 of the positive tests being reported by UCF’s on-campus testing site.
Between Sept. 19 and Saturday, 358 tests were administered with 41 positive for COVID-19 — this is about an 11.5% positivity rate.
The 41 positive tests include results from the random COVID-19 testing of about 100 students that reside in on-campus Greek life housing, which UCF began on Sept. 21.
At the beginning of September, UCF said a total of 16 women tested positive — out of 79 women total who live in the three sorority houses — leading to the university quarantining three on-campus sorority houses.
UCF spokeswoman Heather Smith said the 13 on-campus Greek houses — which normally have a capacity of of 445 beds — has a reduced occupancy of 300.
Random Testing
After announcing the first wave of random COVID-19 tests will betargeted to about 100 students who belong to Greek organizations on Sept. 15,
Dr. Michael Deichen, associate vice president of UCF Student Health Services, said Monday the university will continue to test randomly selected members of groups that may be at risk of increased rates of COVID-19 cases.
“Increased risk does not mean members of a group have done anything wrong — in fact, they may be adhering well to our COVID-19 guidelines,” Deichen said. “But they may have more exposure to others due to their living situation or work environment …”
Deichen said rapid testing will be used in the coming weeks, which was initially announced on Sept. 4, and reiterated that random testing allows UCF to detect possible COVID-19 outbreaks and identify emerging trends.
“Residents of on-campus housing and faculty teaching in-person classes will be the next groups to be tested,” Deichen said. “Subsets of those groups will be selected and notified in October.”
