Indiana coronavirus caution urged as IU seeks fraternity closures

Indiana University officials asked Thursday for all 40 fraternity and sorority houses at its Bloomington campus to shut down, saying their high rates of coronavirus infections made them unsafe

Indiana university bloomington wants to close all greek houses due to covid-19.

Officials say some of them have shown an increase in virus cases.richard essex takes us to the campus.i there wasn't much traffic on fraternity and sorority row this morning, with the exception of a few in greek life that appear to be packing up and headed away from campus.

Iu wants every greek house on campus to close for the remainder of the semester.the university says coronavirus testing at some of the houses has produced more than 50% positives.lauren robel/ indiana university provost: "there is a scenario under which they could be closed by the public health authorities i suspect that is a bit down the road from the public health authorities are now."

There are close to one hundred students in each of the greek houses, they share sleeping, dining and common area with all members.

The university says the communal living space has allowed the virus to spread almost unchecked.chuck carney / indiana university spokesman: "greek houses at iu bloomington are seeing this type of spread at a quick and quickly increasing rate.

Some mitigation testing positivity rates are coming in as high as 87 percent."indiana university required all students to have a covid 19 test before coming back to campus.

The virus, according to the university is not spreading throughout the dorms.marcus prine is a freshman and he tested positive for the virus before coming back.prine lives in a dorm but is considering joining a greek house,marcus prine/student: "it is all on line over zoom calls everyone goes on the zoom and you do it that way it is kinda weird, but i guess that is what we have to do."

The university has 40 greek houses, but it can't order them to shut down.the houses aren't owned or operated by the university, but by