The apps, which can automatically inform students who may have been exposed to the virus and support them to test, will be “very important” for containment, Dosch said. The goal is to complete the manual contact detection process, which requires people who test positive for the virus to remember where they have been and who may have been exposed.
However, college campuses present their own unique challenges that can make digital tracking ineffective. Their common setting can be especially challenging place to track disease spread. A contact person typically needs to track down three or four contacts per infected person – a number that could be 10 times higher on a college campus volume, Dosch said.
“[Students] have more of the tendency to be in the student union, to be out at night, “Dosch said. We are adding contacts very soon, but we are worried. “
The pandemic also exacerbates health care issues that universities struggle to manage under normal circumstances, said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Student health centers are often underfunded and underpaid, resulting in misdiagnosis and long waiting times.
“Most colleges and universities are not prepared for an increase in health care problems,” Pasquerella said.
Drinking among minors and drug use at parties could make students unbearable to report their contacts. Already, major outbreaks have been linked to fraternities this summer, even before most students return to campus.
An effective contact follow-up program also requires robust access to testing, as well as plans for isolating infected patients and those exposed to the virus. Researchers have suggested testing every two days for safest opening, although CDC guidance from June says testing for re-entry has not been “systematically studied.” Without a coordinated strategy for testing and isolating contacts, policies differ across campuses.
Even though some campuses require students to download the tracing apps, some privacy advocates warn that it is not clear if there are limits to how schools can use the data they generate. Law firm Kirk Nahra of law firm Wilmer Hale said schools need to lay out and establish enforceable guidelines so students can trust schools not to misuse their data or expose potentially sensitive information about their movements on campus.
At Rice University in Houston, which plans to welcome about 3,000 undergraduates this fall, students will be required to download a contact tracking app from the emergency notification company Everbridge. Similar to Apple’s Google tracking technology, the Everbridge app uses a Bluetooth signal to track proximity to other app users, but it also lets people enter manpower symptom data that may be useful for contacting tracers.
Rice’s app requirement extends to all returning students, even if they do not live in campus housing, said Klara Jelinkova, vice president for international operations and IT. However, a spokesman for the school said there was no penalty for students not downloading the app.
Even with a mandate to use these apps, there are no guarantees that students will meet, university officials said.
“Short of checking someone’s phone to see if it’s there, there’s no way to see if anyone has downloaded the app,” said Schroeder of the University of Arizona.
