Purdue: Quarantine for students in 23 Greek houses, cooperatives, dorms in second week of classes

WEST LAFAYETTE – Nearly two dozen Purdue fraternities, sororities, cooperatives and other student housing were under some sort of quarantine, midway through the second week of the fall semester, university officials confirmed Wednesday.

Of 162 confirmed coronavirus cases among students tested on campus since Aug. 1, 93 – or 57 percent – were living in some sort of congregate housing, according to Purdue figures.

But the culprit, so far, hasn’t been beer pong or the close quarters of porch parties during the return of 40,000 students as much as it’s been about how housemates were sharing bathrooms and who had access to kitchen privileges, Dr. Esteban Ramirez, chief medical officer for the Protect Purdue Health Center, said.

“It’s not been partying, that we’ve found,” Ramirez said. “Believe it or not, it's really just the everyday things that we do that we don't think about. You put your toothbrush down on the sink and you have COVID or you didn't find out until the next day. Well, that place where you put your toothbrush down, potentially now it has viral particles that could infect somebody.

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“It’s the things that we don't think about necessarily on a day-to-day basis, but now, in a pandemic, you have to think through all the time.”