Colleges and universities are already moving from instruction for individuals to online classes after hundreds of students on campuses across the country tested positive for COVID-19, again throwing cold water on hopes for the fall semester.
In the past week, schools with big names like Notre Dame, Michigan State, and University of North Carolina have moved classes online after brief instruction re-enactment, and other universities are likely to do the same in the coming weeks as the explosion of cases continue.
Clusters have also been identified at other universities that remain open, and threaten to survive in college towns and cities in America. But as cases in these communities continue to increase, experts warn that instruction for individuals at universities is likely to prove infallible in the midst of a pandemic.
High school students and young adults are the main demographic now spreading the disease, according to recent data. This fact puts the student population, faculty, staff and the communities in which they live at risk.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned this week that young adults are becoming major spreaders of the virus, especially those who do not know they have it, because their symptoms are mild or non-existent.
“We know from various studies that young adults spread the virus at a very high rate. Bringing college and college students to campus who live nearby will be a perfect setup for the virus to spread rapidly, “said Katherine Auger, associate chair for outcomes at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Students of this particular age group engage in riskier behaviors, such as partying that help spread COVID-19.
And some students come from other cities and states, some who may be hotspots for COVID-19, creating the possibility that they could sow outbreaks in their college towns.
“It’s very difficult at this moment of time in the United States to bring together enormous numbers of people and from there that cases will not spread, especially in this age group,” said Dr. Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology. the Harvard TH School of Public Health.
‘I think it’s one of the most difficult age groups. It’s not a high school where you can realistically try to keep most people from partying and it’s not an elementary school and it’s not adults. It is this one age group where famous is that it has a lot of people who get together and get together on a regular basis and are probably without masks and that is just the reality of college life for a lot of people. “
Several outbreaks in universities and colleges have already been detected around the country.
UNC shifted undergraduate personal instruction to virtual learning after 130 students tested positive in the first week of classes. The percentage of tests that returned positive was nearly 14 percent – a figure that would classify it as a hotspot if UNC was its own province, city or state.
Notre Dame, which has confirmed 336 cases of COVID-19 since August 3, will go online in the next two weeks in an effort to spread the disease. If that doesn’t work, the campus could close for the rest of the semester.
Similar stories are likely to be told over the next few weeks, when students return to campuses at hundreds of institutions.
Thirty-seven percent of higher education institutions plan to reopen this fall for personal instruction, a drop from the 74 percent who plan to reopen by June, according to the College Crisis Initiative, a project at Davidson College that seeks learn how to “innovate colleges and universities in a crisis mind.”
“I just don’t see whole schools making it all the way through the semester,” said Matt McFadden, vice president of strategy & accounts at SimpsonScarborough, a marketing and research agency for higher education.
“What we are seeing right now is almost unprepared, even though they have spent the whole summer. It’s just something no one has dealt with, ‘McFadden said.
Campuses are trying to make adjustments during the pandemic by reducing capacity in housing, requiring masks and social distance, conducting tests and tracking and setting up areas where students can be quarantined with COVID-19. But that may not be enough to stop the spread of the disease, especially if students do not follow social distance rules or wear masks.
Several schools, such as Syracuse and Purdue, are already having trouble getting students to stop partying, and threaten to stop dismissing those who catch it.
“Last night, a large group of first-year students selfishly put the thing that so many of you want to say about Syracuse University – that is, an opportunity to experience a college for housing,” said a Syracuse official. wrote in a tersely edited letter Thursday.
“I say this because the students who gathered on the Quad yesterday may have done enough damage to close the campus, including residences and personal learning, before the academic semester itself begins.”
Mina said colleges and universities need to ensure they have adequate testing and contact infrastructure for testing and contacts, as well as the ability to quarantine and isolate students with COVID-19 in quarantine. It is not enough to test all students once, but institutions must have access to rapid, supervisory tests that students can test multiple times per semester to detect cases before they break out.
But even as schools continue to face these difficulties, instruction in person will resume this fall. This is due in part to the financial stability of schools.
Elite schools like Harvard and Princeton have resources to expand and run tests online, but less affluent schools and smaller state and private schools do not. These schools are more likely to reopen because of a reliance on tuition and board and board income, McFadden said.
“There is definitely a financial obligation for them to open up. They support thousands of workers, even in smaller schools and so not opening up to full capacity is detrimental to having their own micro-economy, ”he said.
Institutions may also feel obligated to keep campuses open to support students who do not have stable learning environments or resources at home, he added.
Experts warn outbreaks at universities could lead to escalation in cases within their communities. While young adults are much less likely to experience a serious COVID-19 disease, they can still spread it to people who will, namely older adults and people with underlying health conditions.
Opening colleges and universities can also make it harder to open K-12 classes, which should be the priority, some experts say, because the impact of lack of instruction is personally greater on children, especially younger ones. Students can also better adapt to online learning.
“If colleges reopen, it’s likely that community numbers will increase to the point that we are unable to have classes for younger children,” Auger added.
They noted that Ohio State University has students who live on campus, but the City of Columbus has decided to have virtual learning for K-12.
“That’s why colleges will open with a younger student learning,” she added.
Higher education institutions face not only financial pressure to reopen, but political pressure. The Trump administration has put a lot of pressure on opening K-12 schools, but the president this week also urged universities to resume in-person classes.
“The iPads are beautiful, but you will not learn in the same way as there are,” he said.
“But for university students, the chance of serious illness is less than or equal to the risk of a seasonal flu.”
.
