INITIAL ALERTEmail
Verified verbatimAlert Carolina Official Archive -- verbatim notification text quoted by NC Newsline from alertcarolina.unc.edu/notifications/2020/08/14/cases/1839 chars
The University has identified two separate clusters of COVID-19 cases in Ehringhaus Community and Granville Towers. A "cluster" is defined by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services as five or more cases that are deemed close proximity in location. "Location" is defined as a single residential hall or dwelling. We are notifying the campus of these clusters per guidance under of the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics Act, which establishes requirements regarding health and safety information that universities must share with their campuses. The individuals in these clusters have been identified and are isolating and receiving medical monitoring. We have also notified the Orange County Health Department and are working with them to identify additional potential exposures. All residents in these living spaces have been provided additional information about these clusters and next steps. Contact tracing has been initiated with direct communication to anyone determined to have been a close contact with a positive individual. A close contact is defined as someone who has been within 6 feet of an infected person for more than 15 minutes when either person has not been wearing a face covering. Those identified as a close contact will be notified directly and provided with further guidance. Anyone experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, which include fever, shortness of breath, muscle aches or a cough, should immediately contact their medical provider, Campus Health (919-966-2281) or the University Employee Occupational Health Clinic (919-966-9119). The University will not broadly communicate details about individual positive cases, consistent with the State Human Resources Act and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, as well as other privacy considerations.
Sent at 2:40 PM EDT on August 14, 2020 -- exactly four days after in-person classes resumed on August 10
Marked one of the first documented uses of a Clery-aligned emergency notification system for a disease cluster -- a use case not contemplated when Alert Carolina was designed in 2008
Cited the NCDHHS five-case threshold and the Clery Act by name, framing the notification as a legal compliance disclosure rather than an active-safety warning
Notable for what it does NOT say -- no shelter, no avoidance directive, no instructions for the recipient to take action; purely informational, consistent with a Clery 'advisory' classification