The Covid Cases on Campus: They Should Scare Us

A recent article in the New York Times had an interactive map, detailing the number of positive Covid cases on certain college campuses in the US (over 750 educational institutions). Their data show there are over 26,000 cases and some deaths. And, the number of campuses with over 100 cases is frightening. Here is the link:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-college-cases-tracker.html

Here is what bothers me with respect to these data and why they should send us off to rethink college reopenings and how to do that, if at all, in the safest manner. Surely we can agree that the data thus far are not proof positive that we have done things well. To me, the answers remain illusive and some of the questions posed below may have been thoughtfully answered and addressed, although the larger public is unaware of them.

One important note: It is true that some cases are inevitable, although the NBA bubble offers insights into ways for curbing cases. And, businesses can learn from these experiences too, although "residential" life is obviously not a concern in that context.

Here are some key questions that occur to me:

1. How many cases are "acceptable" on a campus and what is the shut-off number at which a campus will decide to close? How many campuses know what that number is now (before closure) and also, what goes into the choice of the cut-off? Is that a decision based on scientific data. percentage of population living on campus, reasons for the positive tests, willingness of faculty/staff and students to continue?
2. How many colleges have plans A and B and C for shutting down and the best ways to communicate those decisions? Who is involved in making these decisions? Does the plan include how to get students back to home or some other safer place and space? Is there a way to switch instantly to online learning and are all systems ready for that quick shift? How about the costs of that? Have professors designed courses in advance to move from in-person to online and perhaps back to in-person, all in the same semester? We do not this: we know that: we shut colleges down as if they were light switches with lots of accompanying problems. Is it safe to assume we learned from that experience that colleges are not light switches?
3. When there are campus outbreaks, who bears the blame for what caused the rise in positive cases? Shall we blame students for partying and then suspend them without due process? Shall we blame colleges for not monitoring student residential life behavior? Shall we recognize that outbreaks could come from many sources of which partying is but one? What about off-campus housing implications and life in sororities/fraternities? It is noteworthy that Northwestern closed both sororities and fraternities from having students live there.
4. When students are quarantined in dorms, what plans are there to get food to the students and quality clean up of garbage? Who collects the garbage? And, who visits dorm rooms to see if any students quarantined are ill and what if they don't want to disclose that reality for fear of reprisals? Do we have nurses going room to room or are we relying on self-reporting?
5. Are we better off with first year students on campus or better to have senior? Which needs education in person more? Which are likely to be more compliant in terms of rules? What about graduate students, including professional schools? And, this isn't the time to consider how internships work, although a good question for sure.
6. How are we measuring the incidents of Covid and how uniform are our approaches campus to campus? Do we have quality contact tracing methods in place? Are the data made public to students, parents/guardians, faculty and staff? Where are the data housed? Data collection and dissemination and analysis external to academe has been flawed? Are campuses vastly better at this?
7. Who is worried and doing something about student mental health through all this? Are there teletherapy sessions? We know that mental health has been negatively impacted by Covid. When students are confined to their rooms and they are away from home, how are they doing? How are they managing their classwork? How are they managing their isolation?

Consider these starter questions. Who has the answers? Do you? I don't. But I know one thing. Were I still a college president, I would be extremely wary of reopening now as I have expressed before and likely would not give the go-ahead. I would not want to call any family member of a student, staff or faculty person with words that start like this: I regret to inform you.....

And, I need to sleep at night. Reopening makes me anxious; so does remaining closed. We call this a Hobson's choice or a no-win. And, sadly, we have insufficient information to make data informed quality decisions. That alone should frustrate us.