PULLMAN, WASH – COVID-19 is still an ongoing issue around college campuses, but for some, like the University of Idaho, it has hit their Greek row more rapidly than anywhere.

“We had some chapters come to us a few weeks ago and approach us about more members being symptomatic a couple chapters went into self-imposed quarantine on their own and reached out to us so that’s when we started doing some more focused sampling from the greek community knowing that there was a spread,” Blaine Eckles, University of Idaho Dean of Students said.

The University of Idaho’s Greek row has seen a recent spike in COVID-19 cases; a few of their sororities and fraternities are currently on lockdown due to these spikes, the Sigma Chi fraternity is one of them.

“When we found out that we were getting tested we thought about how many members we had living in and for us that would be if we had four members test positive we would go on lockdown and we just thought based off of the numbers that we had seen from around the campus that we would end up going on lockdown,” Ryan Pike, Vice President of Sigma Chi said.

Sigma Chi President, Ethan Reeder, said that Sigma Chi created an action plan in case they had to quarantine their members.

“Following the action plan that we made over the summer we have quarantined as many members as we can in the quarantine apartment of the people who tested positive and then two people are also being quarantined off campus by the university and then two went home. Following our action plan we are keeping the people who did not test positive and the people who did test positive separate to avoid the risk of cross contamination,” Reeder said.

Reeder said that the members who have tested positive are being held in one of their apartment style rooms in the Sigma Chi house to ensure that those who are positive do not come in contact with those in the house who are negative.

Ryan Pike says that his biggest concern with members being in quarantine is their mental health.

“Mental health is definitely a big thing, every year we stress, seasonal depression and being up in the palouse, already the weather gets super bad for a long time in the school year and along with having to stay alone and not being around other people it makes it a lot worse.”

Blaine Eckles, also has concerns. “My biggest concern for students is that they feel all alone when they actually aren’t and we want to hear from them if they feel that way so we can reach out and support them and connect with them too.”