How USC is handling COVID-19 on campus

Before the University of South Carolina brought some 35,000 students back to Columbia for classes, the school spent all summer preparing.

They installed cameras to monitor face mask usage, put out a promotional campaign promoting social distancing and hand washing and even launched a COVID-19 testing program that would give students results in 24 hours. 

But that didn't make the university immune to outbreaks. 

This week, shortly after we recorded this podcast, we learned from newly-released numbers that more than 1,000 USC students have tested positive for COVID-19, more than any other major university in the country. 

The campus is still on low alert, according to its COVID-19 Dashboard, and university president Bob Caslan has said he's committed to trying to see the semester through, though he warned last week he would "pull the plug" if necessary. 

Andy Shain, who leads our team of reporters in Columbia and Avery Wilks, a projects reporter who is also based in the Capital City, filled us in on how the university is utilizing "quarantine dorms," what's being done to rein in off-campus partying and why other colleges across the state and country are closely watching what happens at USC. 

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