Since the beginning of the pandemic, Pepperdine has logged 240 cases of COVID-19 among its students, faculty and staff. The last week of March and first week of April saw the largest outbreak among the community, with at least 19 students being affected, many of them linked to the school’s men’s baseball and men’s volleyball teams.
At that time, the school’s online COVID tracker showed 109 cases for the spring semester; now it shows 124, signifying an increase of 15 cases in the week since Monday, April 12. In the spring 2021 timeframe, Pepperdine reported it had a total of 98 cases on campus and 26 off.
In a statement to The Malibu Times, the university said it had received reports of positive COVID tests through testing at its student health center, self-reporting of those tested elsewhere or reports of presumed positive cases.
Pepperdine spokesperson Alex Forero last week told The Malibu Times that the school had “instituted a comprehensive contact tracing protocol to identify and quarantine all related close contacts and aggressively pursued infection control measures independently and in partnership with LACDPH (including further spacing out students in residence halls, closing limited indoor dining, additional screening testing, etc.).”
She said that the school already has measures such as individually packaged meal items, isolation and quarantine locations and protocols, face covering requirements, a broad limit on visitors to campus and physical distancing requirements in place.