Perception: There’s a COVID-19 outbreak across UConn’s Storrs campus and alerts are going out directing people to avoid certain areas, which are also spreading on social media.

Truth: When a residential student tests positive for COVID, they are notified and moved to isolation space elsewhere on campus. In an abundance of caution, the university engages in contact tracing and quarantines all known close contacts.  This often includes but is not limited to all the students who make up their small “family unit” or “pod” who are also notified and are told they must self-quarantine for 14 days in their living space. Students from different pods are not to interact closely with one another or go into each other’s living spaces at all during this time, so that any potential positive cases can be contained within one pod of students. The living space associated with the positive student and their pod then receives a deep cleaning from UConn Facilities Operations. Before that cleaning takes place, other Facilities employees are told to avoid the area. Messages to this effect are circulating on social media.