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A spike in cases among Litchfield Hall residents has prompted university officials to place the dorm on lockdown this week.

Residential students were already bunkered down for a virtual snow day on WCSU’s campus Thursday when a lockdown mandate was announced for Litchfield  Hall to allow for focused testing of building residents. Now, when the University reopens on Saturday, Litchfield Residents won’t be joining their peers across campus. Residents have been asked not to leave the building to contain and control the spread of COVID-19 for up to 14 days. 

Paul Steinmetz, Director of University Relations, said the decision followed 15 new cases of the COVID-19 virus among Litchfield Hall residents alone this week. WCSU started the semester following the campus reopening with 23 positive tests spread across residents, commuters, faculty, and staff. Campus contact tracers reported that those cases were largely unrelated with external sources and without campus spread. Now, Litchfield Residents make up nearly 80% of WCSU’s latest round of positive COVID-19 tests. 

The closure of Midtown’s Litchfield Hall comes following guidance from the Connecticut Department of Health and state epidemiologists. WCSU President John Clark announced the temporary lockdown Thursday evening in an email blast to students, staff and faculty. 

Litchfield will be closed until the entire building can be retested and those test results come in. All residents have been asked not to leave the building until that testing cycle is completed. Residents may choose to leave campus entirely, but those that do will be required to go through the same initial testing process from Spring move-in and quarantine for seven days after returning to campus. 

Residents will be retested by WCSU’s testing partner Sema4 on both Friday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. and again on Monday during Sema4’s regular testing operations on campus between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. The earliest Litchfield could reopen is Tuesday, 2/23-2/24 pending the results of Monday’s tests and further guidance from experts advising the school on spread prevention.

Litchfield is one of WCSU’s three Midtown Campus residence halls on the corner of White Street and Eighth Avenue. 125 students currently live in the building, marking WCSU’s largest quarantine outside of the University’s partial lockdown at the end of January while students returned to campus. Unlike the residents of the apartment-style dorms on Westside Campus, Litchfield Residents share communal bathrooms, lounges, and kitchens with other residents on each floor. Residents are advised not to socialize in each other’s rooms, though the building’s internal courtyard will be open and available. 

In an email to Litchfield residents sent shortly before Dr. Clark’s announcement, Housing and Residence Life Director Ron Mason explained the new protective measures being implemented in Litchfield Hall and listed new expectations for Residents within the quarantine. Residents are reminded to wear masks in the bathrooms and are asked to wipe down showers, toilets, and sinks before and after use. Increased cleaning of the building’s shared spaces will be scheduled throughout the quarantine. 

Meal deliveries will be provided by Sodexo through the Get Mobile App. Masks should be worn at all times in the building’s shared spaces, and meals should only be eaten in each student’s room. Mason asked residents to “remain in [their] rooms as much as is possible.” 

If students feel sick or think they may have been exposed, they can contact Health Services or report a potential exposure online. Housing & Residence Life maintains a guide to Living On Campus During COVID-19 that includes a FAQ on testing, social distancing guidelines, and definitions of quarantine and self-isolation statuses. Students impacted by the quarantine or in self-isolation have been instructed to contact instructors of any on-campus courses to let them know they cannot attend. 

Testing was partially disrupted by the President’s Day holiday and two-day campus snow closure announced for Thursday and Friday, leaving many students unable to complete their mandatory weekly COVID-19 test and undermining COVID data that might connect Litchfield cases to the rest of the campus community in the future.