University of Pittsburgh
Quarantine Policy

The following letter was sent on July 23, 2020.

Chancellor Patrick Gallagher
University of Pittsburgh

Chancellor Gallagher:

You made the decision to bring back students to the Oakland campus for the fall semester amid the dangerous COVID-19 pandemic. Students will soon be arriving from around the world, as well as from across our country. Your decision brings for you the highest degree of personal responsibility to the residents of Oakland and the gravest consequences should tragedy befall any residents, especially the elderly who are among the most vulnerable to the pandemic.

Your message for our community states: “Students living off campus must shelter in place for 14 days before coming onto campus and can determine if they prefer to do that all at their permanent residence, all at their off-campus residence or a combination of the two based on their situation. Students are encouraged to coordinate these plans with their room or housemates to align as closely as possible.”

Our community has several questions about your quarantine policy, and we will not accept silence as a response to our concerns. Please answer the following:

1) For students choosing to quarantine 14 days in their home country or state, what assurances do Oakland residents have to confirm that these students actually have done so? What protocols does the university have in place to assure our community with 100% certainty that students have fulfilled this important obligation? If you are relying on a student’s honor system to tell you they have fulfilled this, you are doing us a grave disservice.

2) For students choosing to quarantine in our residential community, who enforces your quarantine policy: the University of Pittsburgh, or the City of Pittsburgh?

3) When residents see students violating this policy, do we call the Pitt Police or the City Police?

4) Will the university have the addresses of each student living in our community? In these most dangerous times, we residents certainly have the right to know where and how many students are living in each home.

5) Will residents be given the addresses of students quarantined on their street so that they can more effectively identify who is violating the quarantine policy?

6) How will the university verify that students are actually complying with the quarantine policy in the homes in the community? Will there be visits to the homes by university personnel to enforce the policy? If so, how often will the visits be made?

7) If phone calls will be used to verify compliance, how will enforcement personnel know that students are answering from their place of quarantine instead of from a cell phone elsewhere?

8) After the quarantine period is over, and a student in our community becomes infected by the virus, will every student in their home be quarantined there for 14 days? Or will these students be quarantined elsewhere? For individuals in the home who are not students, is it the responsibility of the city to enforce quarantine of those individuals?

9) Will expulsion be the penalty for university students violating the quarantine policy? If not, what are the consequences for violation of the policy?

10) There are 30,000 students at the Oakland campus. However, it seems the university will only be testing approximately 1,000 students a week for the coronavirus. What are your plans for testing all students at the Oakland campus for the fall semester?

You should also provide your answers to the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation Board of Directors, who have a fiduciary duty to protect our community. These individuals should have their own questions for you to answer.

Your silence in response to our concerns, or implementing an ineffective quarantine policy, can be considered a dereliction of duty to your host community of Oakland. This is especially true if any resident of Oakland succumbs to the coronavirus due to your actions or inaction. In the event of such a tragedy, District Attorney Stephen Zappala will then have to decide as to what course of action his office should take.

Carlino Giampolo

Note: Chancellor Patrick Gallagher chose not to respond.