University of Arizona leadership and Pima County health officials announced plans on Monday for a 14-day shelter in place to help curb surging COVID-19 infection rates on and off-campus.

The shelter-in-place recommendation follows much less restrictive measures — like expansive testing, contact tracing and reduction of in-person classes — implemented by the university since it began inviting students back for a phased reentry Aug. 24.

This new recommendation will apply to students living in on-campus dorms as well as students residing off-campus in geographic areas that are still being defined, said Pima County Health Department Director Dr. Theresa Cullen in a Monday morning news conference. It will allow for exceptions for essential activities like certain classes, work and grocery shopping.

Further details about the recommendation will be posted Monday afternoon, Cullen said.

The plans are designed to suppress increasing infection numbers, with 1,148 confirmed cases out of 24,747 conducted among UA students and staff on Friday, according to the university’s latest updates. This represents a major spike from the less than 400 total positive cases identified on Sept. 3. 

On Friday alone, 133 out of 1,512 came back positive, putting the positivity rate at 8.9%.

The transmission rate, or the R-t, which was below 1 for about a month from August to early September, grew to 1.08 on Friday as well. In some areas, the county public Health department calculated an R-t of over 2. The higher the R-t, the more people one infected person spreads the virus to.

Dr. Richard Carmona, who heads the university’s reentry task force, said there are currently 176 students in on-campus isolation, more than three times as many as there were last week. UA has 417 dorm rooms set aside for that purpose, with a surge capacity of up to 600 rooms.

UA President Dr. Robert C. Robbins claimed the surge is a result of some students flouting county, city and university public health guidelines by attending large gatherings or refusing to mask up in his remarks at Monday’s press conference.

“For the most part, individuals — including our students, our faculty, and our staff — are committed to continuing our educational mission,” Robbins said. “But there are a clear subset of individuals, primarily students, who are not following the rules.”

Some students have already been disciplined for partying and other infractions, with consequences ranging from citations to suspensions and expulsions. 

“This is part of being a good member of society, to take into account the health of others — not just your individual health and not just your individual desire to go out and have a good time and party,” Robbins urged.

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