I have read a number of essays that claim that opening residential college campuses for in-person instruction in the fall is at best naïve and at worst selfish—putting students, as well as faculty and staff, at needless risk simply to improve the bottom line for the college. We are in uncharted waters, it is true, and there is no question that simply bringing students back to campus for a semester as usual is a recipe for disaster. But I will suggest that, given things we have learned about the virus over the past six months, such pronouncements of certain failure are simplistic at best.
There is no question that we must incorporate ambitious mitigation efforts, as the congregate living situations of a residential campus enhance the transmission of the virus. We have seen this in other close living situations, such as retirement centers and cruise ships. However, we have also seen that the outbreaks in these environments have successfully been contained without removing everyone from the setting! It is true that regaining control has meant changing practices such as shared dining facilities, and keeping individuals largely in quarantine, but the critical conclusion is that the situation can be controlled.
On a college campus, this means we must have a wide range of tools that we can employ to mitigate the spread of the disease. We have all become familiar with these—hand washing or sanitizing, maintaining social distance, wearing masks. These steps have been clearly successful in places that were hit hard initially, including southeastern Pennsylvania. Areas in which the virus has come back have been characterized by failure to observe any of these precautions!
To be successful at reopening, a college campus needs to start slowly, monitor closely, and maintain the mitigation strategies for an extended period (two weeks appears to be the magic time length) of stable operation. At that point, it may be possible to relax some of the rules a little, with a close eye on the health of the campus through continued monitoring of symptomatic illness and periodic testing for asymptomatic cases. It is likely that some cases will come to campus, and that some transmission will happen on campus. Success will come from rapid identification and action in terms of isolation and quarantine.
This sounds exhausting, you might say—why would any student want to come to campus? The answer is two-fold—first, the benefit is worth some risk, and second, and more importantly, there is no good way of avoiding that risk. The last couple of months has shown us that quite clearly. The virus has shown up in every state, and short of staying home and letting someone else take care of responsibilities of life such as obtaining food and making a livelihood, everyone will face risk of contracting COVID-19. Those at particularly high risk may make the choice to stay sequestered, but it is impossible for everyone to do so. We know in particular that most 18-22 year-olds will not make that choice to stay sheltered, or wear masks and practice social distancing, so it is plausible that a suitably structured environment on a college campus might actually reduce the transmission probability.
Ridiculous you say? A recent, detailed analysis done at Cornell University suggests exactly this counterintuitive result—the predicted number of infections resulting from a semester of remote instruction is actually higher than what the model would predict for a semester of in-person instruction. To achieve this result, the model assumes complete testing of all students at the beginning of the semester, followed by periodic active testing, good hygiene practices, and contact tracing followed by isolation and quarantine of those infected and exposed. For any single individual on campus, the chance of contracting the disease depends on two primary factors: the ease of transmission, and the number of active infections in the community. The former we can reduce through mitigation measures, and the latter we can reduce through identification and separation of those who are infected or exposed from the general population. A residential campus has the resources and comparative isolation to be able to combat this disease in a way that many larger and more porous communities have failed to do for a wide range of reasons.
The thought that we should wait until the disease “runs its course” is the naïve path. Absent an effective vaccine, at the current rate of infection, it will take multiple years before the United States gains herd immunity—if indeed immunity to the disease is long-lasting. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the nation will tolerate 40,000 cases a day for long, and further “flattening of the curve” will drag this out even longer. There are hopeful signs that a vaccine may be developed and available within a year, although that is far from guaranteed. And for young adults, this year is the most important year in at least a generation to be engaged with a thoughtful and informed community. Completely safe? There is no such thing. Well worth the risk? Absolutely.
MBS 7/1/2020
Big Ideas for Small Colleges 