Duke, UNC see unexpected COVID-19 clusters among vaccinated students

The school year is off to a rocky start for at least two Triangle universities. Both have reported large COVID-19 clusters among vaccinated students before classes have even begun - and one even originated at an outdoor event.

Two new clusters at Duke

Two new COVID-19 clusters identified at Duke University involve 29 medical students and seven members of the women's field hockey team. All were vaccinated, as Duke requires.

Duke Vice President for Public Affairs Michael Schoenfeld says the cases were traced back to various indoor events in Durham. At least one was at a bar or restaurant, and others were in private homes.

Schoenfeld says about half the infected students are asymptomatic. The others have mild cold-like symptoms. The affected students will isolate for 10 days, and contract tracers will identify and test people who made contact with them.

Duke has a strict indoor mask requirement. WRAL News asked whether the university is also considering requiring masks outside or limiting gathering sizes.

Schoenfeld says he's optimistic that the school's near-100 percent vaccination rate will make that unnecessary, but said they're monitoring the issue closely. "I don’t think anything is off the table, but nothing is imminent right now."

However, he said, a freshman convocation that was scheduled to be held indoors at Cameron Stadium has now been moved outdoors to Abele Quad. He said that decision was made before the clusters were announced.

"And everybody will be required to wear masks at that," he added.

UNC cluster linked to outdoor event

At UNC, the cluster involves at least six School of Pharmacy students. The vaccination rate for that school is about 94 percent.

WRAL broke the news that the outbreak was traced back to an outdoor pre-orientation party for PharmD students on August 2nd.

Neel Swamy, a third-year pharmacy student and peer mentor, was at the event. He said around 150 people were there.

"All outside, no indoor component, and students were wearing masks pretty much the entire time, other than when they were eating," said Swamy, who has tested negative.

"I think it’s easy for people who were not at that event to look at what happened at the School of Pharmacy and think, 'Well, this is an example of students being irresponsible,'" Swamy said. "As someone who was at the event, and who is familiar with the pro-vaccination culture of the school, I can confirm for you that wasn’t the case."

UNC does not require masking outdoors. The university has several large outdoor events planned for this upcoming weekend.

"While face masks are not required when outdoors, the University is encouraging that people wear them when participating in any type of group event or gathering, even outdoors," said a UNC spokesperson.

The university is requiring masks indoors, as well as requiring any unvaccinated student or staff member to be tested weekly.

Swamy thinks masks should be required in settings where people aren't socially distanced. He also co-authored an op-ed Friday calling for a vaccine mandate at the school, and for UNC to be prepared to go remote.

"Currently we have not seen that that plan is in place or has been communicated," Swamy said.