COVID-19 cases spike at University of Oregon after winter break

PORTLAND, Ore. — The University of Oregon is responding to a rise in coronavirus cases on campus in Eugene.

The university reported 21 new cases among their on-campus students on Thursday. In the last four days, there have been 69 new cases among on-campus students, and another 33 cases among off-campus students.

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A spokesperson said this week that they prepared for, and anticipated, the spike as students returned from the holiday break.

The university said it is monitoring for an outbreak and has not seen any "clustered cases" yet.

The UO provided this statement:

Given the increase in cases being experienced locally, regionally and nationally, we did prepare for and anticipate similar numbers as students returned to our residence halls for winter term. We have a robust system in place and are requiring students living in our residence halls to be tested multiple times within a short time frame.

This system allows us to identify positive cases early and move them quickly into isolation. We also are conducting contact tracing through Corona Corps to identify any close contacts and move them into quarantine to avoid potential spread.

Last fall, the rate at which identified contacts became positive was lower in our residence halls than in the general Lane County population as a result of this regimented approach and diligence of many of our students to safeguard our community. Though we have seen some elevated case counts at the start of winter, we are hopeful our testing and tracing efforts toward quarantine and isolation will offer similar results from fall term.

We will continue to monitor for an outbreak and have not seen any clustered cases at this time.