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Higher Ed Dive
As coronavirus cases persist, colleges lock down campuses
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
Feb. 17, 2021
Dive Brief:
In an attempt to reverse persistent or rising coronavirus case counts
on campuses, some colleges over the last several weeks have put
students on lockdown.
Some of these institutions are allowing students to attend in-person
classes, while others have ordered them to stay put except to pick up
meals or seek medical care.
Colleges entered the spring term generally more confident in their
ability to contain the virus. However, several factors, including
students' fatigue in following mitigation measures, makes doing so a
challenge.
Dive Insight:
Institutions that brought students back to campus this fall did so
cautiously, often inviting them in waves to curtail the virus's spread,
said Chris Marsicano, founding director of the College Crisis
Initiative at Davidson College, in North Carolina.
Case numbers still tended to spike, but they generally subsided after a
month or so, said Marsicano, whose research group is tracking colleges'
responses to the pandemic.
But the pattern didn't hold true for the spring, he said. Instead of
falling, case counts stayed flat or surged, in part because some
colleges opted to bring students back to campus all at once, Marsicano
said.
Now, institutions are cracking down.
The University of San Diego's some 1,000 residential students were told
last week to remain home as much as they are able. Its president
attributed off-campus gatherings to an upswing in verified cases.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst similarly confined students
earlier this month, ordering those on and off campus to stay in their
residences except for meals, coronavirus testing and medical
appointments. The school threatened disciplinary action for those who
didn't follow the directive.
More recently, the University of Virginia prohibited in-person
gatherings and asked students living on and off campus to remain home.
The institution cited a "troubling" increase in case numbers and said
it detected one of the more contagious variants of the virus, its
student newspaper reported. New strains have been reported on
multiple campuses.
While many colleges have beefed up testing this spring, some are using
antigen testing, Marsicano said, which can yield rapid results but may
turn up more false negatives than other testing types, according to the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
"Students who get tested feel this false sense of security and socialize, but are spreading the virus," he said.
Campus shutdowns, coupled with robust testing, makes sense, because the
virus seems to be transmitted at events where students are flouting
health rules, said A. David Paltiel, a public health professor at Yale
University. Administrators are more to blame than students, he said, as
it's not feasible to expect young adults to abide by these mandates.
Marsicano predicted the lockdowns were in some cases a precursor for
shuttering campuses entirely, a trend that played out in the fall.
Colleges may be wary of sending students home immediately as doing so
would likely exacerbate the spread of the virus as they travel.
"These pauses seem to be the best tool we've got," he said.
Read this and other stories at Higher Ed Dive
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