Twenty-three members of a sorority house at Oklahoma State University have tested positive for COVID-19, the university said this weekend. OSU spokeswoman Monica Roberts told The Oklahoman that as of Saturday, only one Pi Beta Phi member had symptoms.
A third-party contractor will disinfect the building and will do so again after the two-week quarantine period.
"This was expected," Roberts said. "When you bring back 20,000 students, there will invariably be more cases related to campus. We've prepared for this for five months and have protocols in place to manage the situation."
This doubles the number of OSU students who were confirmed to have COVID-19. The university conducted mandatory COVID-19 tests on all students before they moved into their residence halls and found 22 had the virus.
Fall semester classes are scheduled to begin Monday at the university.
The coronavirus has also hit fraternities nationwide. Last month, 45 coronavirus cases at the University of Southern California were linked to three fraternities associated with the school and more than 100 students living in fraternity houses near the University of Washington campus reported testing positive for COVID-19.
News of the COVID-19 outbreak at the sorority house came as Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, led a roundtable discussion at the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences in Tulsa. The meeting was closed to journalists, but state and local officials who attended told the Tulsa World that Birx was unwavering on the necessity for masks and distancing in public.
"She said she came to Oklahoma, as she is other states, asking people to change their behavior to protect others," said Joy Hofmeister, state superintendent of public schools.
Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has resisted imposing a statewide mask order. A statement from Stitt's office said Birx complimented Oklahoma's push to use saliva testing for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
"There are a lot of levers we can pull, but at this point we are in really good shape," Stitt said in the statement. "We have to be very cautious as kids are going back to school."
The state Department of Emergency Management has begun sending personal protective equipment for schools statewide as classes begin, some in-person and some by distance learning.
Items including masks, gloves, gowns and face shields were sent to distribution sites in Oklahoma and Tulsa counties Friday for schools in those regions, the department said, and deliveries to other regional sites will begin Monday.
Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum put a local mask order in place but has been vocal about his frustration with nearby suburbs that haven't.
"(Birx) said they have not seen a state or city put in a mask mandate and it not make an impact," Bynum told the World. "The patients in Tulsa's hospitals are not all from Tulsa."
Birx declined to speak to the media before leaving Tulsa, citing a tight travel schedule. She is on a Midwestern tour that has included stops in Nebraska and Kansas. She is scheduled to be in Arkansas on Monday.
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation said Birx also met with tribal health officials.
The reported number of coronavirus cases in Oklahoma increased by 544 on Sunday with four more deaths due to COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health. On Saturday, the department reported an additional 901 cases of the coronavirus and 13 more deaths.