Chapman sees decrease in COVID-19 cases after initial outbreak

In order to better trace COVID-19 exposure, Chapman University has begun collaborating with Rapid Trace after experiencing an outbreak of positive cases within the first two weeks of school. Graphic by HARRY LADA, Art Director

Chapman University’s active COVID-19 cases reached nearly 300 just a week into the start of the fully in-person semester. Now, the COVID-19 case count rests at 38, as of Sept. 15.

According to the university’s COVID-19 dashboard, positive cases peaked at 290 Sept. 7 — the highest Chapman has reported since the beginning of the pandemic. A total of 1,067 individuals were tested that day, resulting in a 1.97% positivity rate.

Since then, the numbers have been gradually decreasing.

The total number of cases dropped to 258 Sept. 8, which is reflective of individuals completing their isolation period. Of the 437 individuals tested that day, 0.93% tested positive.

Sept. 9 marked another slight decline in the overall case count, with the COVID-19 Dashboard listing the university at 217 cases. The positivity rate decreased to 0.9% as well, and 697 individuals were tested.

Just one week after the peak, the number dropped to 38 Sept. 14.

In a Sept. 6 email to the Chapman community, President Daniele Struppa announced that the university would be partnering with Rapid Trace — a contact tracing company that works with over 14 universities in the United States — to help provide extra support to the university’s current contact tracing team. The email also stated that the company will be supervised by Chapman’s Student Health Services.

“We continue to implement solutions to the ebb and flow of the virus and invest the necessary resources to slow the spread of COVID-19 on our campuses,” Struppa wrote.

According to Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Brian Powell, Rapid Trace was already a partner of the university and had helped find employees who could work at Chapman.

“We actually learned that, instead of leasing employees, we could simply enter into a contract with them that would allow us to bring them into a partnership with us as an independent contractor, thereby giving us instant access to an entire team of trained and qualified contract tracers to best support us in the immediacy and in going forward,” Powell told The Panther.

Powell said that Rapid Trace began working with Student Health Services over Labor Day weekend.

Powell also emphasized that Rapid Trace allows the university to utilize more than 30 trained individuals instead of hiring a handful of new workers to train.

“I think that what everyone will see is immediate response and ongoing support to service our campus, should there ever be any exposure: great or small,” Powell said.

In Orange County as a whole, cases have also been climbing. On Sept. 8, 349 individuals tested positive for COVID-19, and 598 people tested positive Sept. 9. During this two-day period, there were 35 reported deaths.

The county currently harbors over 291,000 cases as of Sept. 14, with an increase of 1,112 positive reports from the previous three days.

Dan Kelly, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, said that cold weather and new viral variants are two factors that could cause Chapman’s coronavirus numbers to increase again.

“My expectation is, when the weather is colder and more people are spending time indoors, there’s going to be a greater potential for exposure and a greater likelihood that people will get COVID-19,” Kelly said. “I would expect to see the numbers pick back up heading into late October, early November (and) December.”

He also said that while the coronavirus cannot be eliminated, there is a “real possibility” that vaccination breakthroughs in terms of preventing infections can be accomplished, and that we can eventually achieve fewer case numbers nationwide.

Kelly noted that only time will tell the effectiveness of booster shots made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Nevertheless, it will take time to come up with antibodies that can be used in several scenarios.

Continuing to work on monoclonal antibodies — proteins that are created in laboratories and function similarly to the antibodies that fight off viruses in humans — will also help, according to Kelly.

“I think that variant-specific boosters are going to be a fundamental and important part of this equation, and our ability to predict and then go get a booster (shot) will put us in a better situation for everyone to return to their sort of normal life,” Kelly said.

Correction: An earlier version of the graphic associated with this story inaccurately compared Orange County’s increase in positive COVID-19 cases to the total positive cases at Chapman. Now, this graphic compares the increase in number of COVID-19 cases at both locations.