City Councilman Liz Breadon (Allston / Brighton) reports that Boston College has agreed to rent a BPD detail to travel to Brighton on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights to cover all meetings of hardy partying Eagles as part of their plan to join the college and the surrounding neighborhood from a Covid-19 hotspot.
But in a post on neighborhood mailing lists, Breadon says that’s not enough and that she’s joining councilor Kenzie Bok, who represents the same student heavy Fenway and Mission Hill neighborhoods, in appealing to local colleges to to keep the students at home.
In a letter to President William College, Leahy and Boston University, President Robert Brown, Breadon says she ‘does not have much confidence’ that the schools will provide the same level of Covid-19 prevention and care to her numerous off-campus students as they have promised students living in dorms on campus.
It appears that students outside campus will not have the same level of access to quarantine facilities, medical support and control as those living on campus. The physical proximity of off-campus students to neighborhood residents increases the risk of community outreach outside the university campus.
In particular, Breadon says she wants answers from both schools on how they will care for out-of-campus students will meet the same social distance and machine requirements as students living in dorms; how they will ensure that out-of-campus students adhere to 14-day quarantines if they test positive, and what medical support they have; how the schools will perform contact tracing for positive off-campus students and what their penalties are for hosting or attending large parties and not complying with general requirements for mask and social distance.
But even if she gets answers, Breadon adds, she urges schools to keep most students at home, distance learning, because of the sheer number of students off-campus and the risks to Allston / Brighton residents.
Apart from that, one part of BC’s planned Covid-19 program, an app that allows both students and staff to schedule their required Covid-19 tests, is not ready. In an email to professors and college staff last week, the school said it was unable to complete tests of the CoVerified app and so staff will need to arrange for walk-in tests at the Conte Forum over the next few weeks.
People who take a test will receive a wristband that they are required to wear as they move across campus.
