The Daily Egyptian has filed Freedom of Information Act requests to learn more about how many SIU-Carbondale students have been quarantined or isolated because of exposure to COVID-19.
The DE previously reported 48 students were quarantined and 13 students were placed in isolation in the month of August, based on data from the FOIA request.
New data obtained indicates between Sept. 1 through 19, 62 students were placed in quarantine and 21 students were placed in isolation in university housing.
Since Aug. 9, 144 students have been placed in quarantine or isolation in SIU Housing, with 110 of them being in quarantine and 34 being in isolation.
SIU currently does not publicly release quarantine numbers. But, the school's weekly reports include all active cases, not only new cases. The numbers received in the FOIA request of students quarantining/isolating include only students who were newly placed in quarantine/isolation for that week.
Additionally, the quarantine/isolation data is broken down by weeks starting on Sundays, while the weekly active case report is released every Wednesday.
These differences in reporting methods may account for discrepancies between the active on-campus cases and students newly placed in isolation.
Reports of active cases associated with SIU-C can be found here.