Chapman University experiences COVID-19 outbreak in weeks leading up to finals, graduation

An outbreak of COVID-19 cases on Chapman campus began during the week of May 2, with 38 students testing positive. The following week, 68 students, 1 faculty and 1 staff member tested positive. Graphic by HARRY LADA, Art Director

In the weeks leading up to finals and the class of 2022’s graduation, Chapman University saw an outbreak of COVID-19 cases among its student body since May 2.

Though the current number of positive cases is lower than what was reported during the interterm period, some students are expressing concerns about the recent surge and urging the university to reinstate its COVID-19 dashboard onto the CU Safely Back website.

In response, President Daniele Struppa informed the Chapman community in a May 20 email of an update to the COVID-19 dashboard, effective immediately.

“A revised COVID-19 dashboard is now available on the CU Safely Back website,” Struppa wrote. “It’s important to note that the COVID-19 testing done while we have remained in the ‘low’ community level altered the testing protocol, and therefore the data we have access to share.” 

The webpage now contains weekly information about the number of tests performed at the Chapman Student Health Center, as well as the number of new positive cases obtained from those tests and the overall positivity rate. Up-to-date vaccination data is still accessible at the bottom of the page.

The university president also clarified in a May 11 email to the Chapman community that masks are not required at the upcoming commencement ceremonies but will be provided for any guests who wish to wear them. Additionally, there will be socially distanced seating offered for guests upon request.

“The university’s COVID-19 Task Force remains vigilant in its work and is actively monitoring the state of COVID-19 in our region,” Struppa wrote. “Although the country is seeing a rise in cases, hospitalizations remain steady, and Orange County remains at the community risk level of ‘low.’”

According to Jacqueline Deats, the director of student health, 452 tests were conducted during the week of May 2 to May 6, with 407 students, 17 faculty and 27 staff members getting tested. Of the total tests, 38 came back positive — all of which came from students who were tested. 

During the week of May 9 and May 11, a total of 502 tests were conducted, with 464 students, 7 faculty and 28 staff getting tested. Of these tests, 70 came back positive, with 68 coming from student tests.

Deats told The Panther one of the reasons Chapman’s data has not been uploaded onto the COVID-19 dashboard, which was removed in April 2022, was due to the increased accessibility and use of at-home test kits. Currently, the county of Orange does not count at-home antigen tests in their COVID-19 reportings.

“The only test the county accepts or adds to their dashboard are PCR tests,” Deats said. “Everything else, (like) antigen tests, (Orange County Health Care Agency) calls ‘probables.’ They don’t call them cases.”

Orange County is currently ranked as having “low” COVID-19 community levels. Deats said the university’s original plan was to resume updating the COVID-19 dashboard if these levels advanced to “medium” or “high.”

According to executive vice president Harold Hewitt, who also works as the university’s chief operating officer and head of the COVID-19 Task Force, another reason Chapman delayed updating the dashboard is because most individuals getting tested were either directly exposed to COVID-19 or exhibiting clear symptoms — meaning the positivity rate among individuals tested would likely be askew.

To illustrate this rationale, Hewitt referred to the week of May 9, during which the university initially reported a test positivity rate of 14% to The Panther, though the COVID-19 dashboard currently reflects this number as 12.4%

“Fourteen percent would be misleading, because when we posted the dashboard, we had a requirement that the majority of people on campus test, and so that was a more accurate depiction,” Hewitt said.

Comparatively, Hewitt said the test positivity rate during the week of Jan. 3 was about 4%, which he believes to be a far more educated assessment of COVID-19 case numbers on campus. Though 300 positive cases were reported in that timespan, students were also testing more frequently in alignment with the university’s return-to-campus protocol; 9,597 tests were performed the week of Jan. 3 in comparison to 727 the week of May 9.

“We continue to think that if we posted the data in the way that we were doing it before, we would scare everyone unnecessarily,” Hewitt said. “The Task Force (isn’t) trying to hide anything; we think the data is misleading.”

Though the COVID-19 Dashboard does not offer a glimpse at COVID-19 statistics beyond the week of May 2 to compensate for the time in which data reporting was halted, information for the week of Jan. 3 is displayed at the top of the “Latest Covid Indicators” — functioning as a control for which students to gauge the accuracy of more recent reports.

To combat the current outbreak, Hewitt recommends students wear their masks in public spaces if they are comfortable doing so, and he also recommends students wash their hands frequently and get tested if they feel they have symptoms.

Mara Hughes, a graduating student who majored in political science, said she and some other students are worried about the recent increase in COVID-19 transmission and the university’s selective, public acknowledgement about it.

“It’s easy for (Chapman administration) to kind of go without being transparent about (the recent outbreak), because they stopped publishing the data about COVID-19 cases,” Hughes said. “They (weren’t) putting the data anywhere so that at least the community could tell what’s going on and make judgments about what to do with their own safety based on that.”

Hughes described the fear of potentially being affected by the outbreak amid finals and commencement ceremonies as a “nightmare situation.” 

She also told The Panther she is particularly concerned for the immunocompromised and high-risk students, faculty and staff on campus navigating their last week on campus, given the university’s discouragement of online learning in order to prioritize the traditional Chapman experience.

“Immunocompromised students are being put in a really dangerous position, because they are being required to go to in-person classes that now don’t even have a mask requirement, and tons of students are taking advantage of the fact that there’s no longer a mask requirement,” Hughes said.

Currently, the university does not offer a hybrid option to attend classes but can seek special accommodations through the Disability Services Office. However, according to Hughes, students who have requested a hybrid learning option through Disability Services are oftentimes not being allowed to do so.

The lack of a hybrid option spurred a Change.org petition in April 2022 outlining three major changes to be made to the university. As of May 20, the petition has garnered over 215 supporters.

First, the reinstatement of the hybrid learning model used toward the end of the 2021 academic year, in which students and faculty can opt to attend class in-person, hybrid or remotely. The petition also calls for the provision of COVID-19 testing to anyone who wishes for one and the resumption of daily health screening checks at areas with high traffic such as Leatherby Libraries and Argyros Forum.

“With the hybrid model, students and professors who wish to remain in-person would do so, while those who do not feel comfortable coming to class would be able to attend class remotely,” the petition reads. “This is especially important with the recent denial of testing, the lifting of the mask mandate, the removal of access to data on known COVID-19 cases at Chapman and the (removal of the) COVID-19 clear checks.”

In addition to providing guaranteed accommodations for students who are immunocompromised or who have disabilities, the petition states having a hybrid model would enable students who have been exposed to or tested positive for COVID-19 to be able to attend class and stay caught up on the course material as opposed to falling behind. 

Camille Jacobson, a graduating senior who majored in business administration, does not feel Chapman’s current case numbers and positivity rate are things to “necessarily be concerned about,” but she does believe reinstating the COVID-19 Dashboard could be “beneficial.”

“I think it probably does more good than bad to have (the COVID-19 Dashboard),” Jacobson said. “I don’t feel super strongly about it one way or the other, to be honest, especially because it’s almost the end of the school year. So at this point, it’s kind of like there’s not a whole lot of reasons to have it. But if students feel like that would be helpful in their decision making on how to protect themselves, I don’t see why not; if that’s helping with peace of mind, then reimplement it.”

Nikkei Student Union (NSU) member Nana Nakano, a freshman broadcast journalism and documentary major, tested positive for the virus after attending the Flower Moon Festival April 29, which was hosted by The Collective — another student club on campus. Nakano decided to get tested after hearing that several people who attended the festival had tested positive.

While she initially tested positive that Monday, she began experiencing symptoms Wednesday night.

“At first, it was a sore throat,” Nakano said. “But then as the night progressed, I was getting a fever, and I was getting chills.”

Nakano was still experiencing symptoms the following day, so she got tested that morning. While waiting for her results, she debated attending her 9 a.m. class but ended up having to move her belongings from her room in South Morlan to an isolation space in North Morlan after getting back a positive result.

Nakano currently tests negative, but said she still has a fever, cough and congestion.

“It’s my first time getting COVID-19, so it definitely feels more real now,” Nakano said. “I felt like I’ve been definitely testing the waters sometimes (by) not wearing masks to school, so it definitely humbled me. I always knew that COVID-19 is a serious issue, and it’s something that I definitely didn’t want, but I had never experienced it, and I’ve never had friends experience that either. I was definitely not very skeptical about it, but I was more confident about ‘If I get COVID-19, I’ll be fine.’”

Eva Wong, another member of the NSU club, tested positive in early May through an at-home testing kit after attending club activities two nights in a row — one of which was NSU’s May 5 formal. The following week, the club leaders emailed members, urging them to get tested if they attended the formal since multiple attendees began reporting positive results.

Wong, a junior peace studies and theater performance double major, said she, too, was diagnosed with COVID-19 after noticing the onset of various symptoms such as mild chest pain. She was ultimately prescribed the Pfizer medication Paxlovoid in order to combat her symptoms, which she said was mostly effective, though she continues to experience an inexplicable pain in her chest.

“That’s the thing about COVID-19; it’s so unpredictable, and it really varies from person to person,” Wong told The Panther. “For some people I know, it took a couple months for (symptoms) to clear up. I hope it’s not that long for me.”

Wong, Nakano and Hughes all affirmed they had either personally seen or heard of instances where students who suspected they had been exposed to COVID-19 getting turned away from testing at the Student Health Center because they weren’t experiencing any symptoms.

Deats told The Panther that if students were exposed to COVID-19 but are not experiencing symptoms yet, they should wait three to five days after the exposure before getting tested. Testing too soon, Deats said, may result in a false negative result, meaning that although the students test negative at the time, they could develop symptoms within the next few days.

Chapman’s current testing guidelines are modeled after the California Department of Public Health and the Orange County Health Care Agency (OCHCA).

As for the upcoming fall semester, Hewitt explained the university will continue running with its current COVID-19 protocols. If the county and university moves up to a “medium” or “high” risk of transmission, Chapman will escalate the scale of their policies as indicated on the CU Safely Back website.

Editor-in-Chief Katie Reul contributed to this report.