thomas leverett weblog

covid comes to college

I am especially interested in how colleges and universities handle the likelihood that a hundred or thousand of their students come back with a deadly disease. I can't say I'm an expert, but I knew it was a huge mess from the start. There are a lot of complicating factors, not the least of which is that colleges and universities have to survive too.

Starting at the beginning, the obvious first step is testing everyone on their arrival and knowing exactly who is carrying it from the start. Some I believe are not even doing that. I guess they figure what happens, happens. Well, it'll happen, I guarantee that. But it seems to me that if you know they are infected upon their arrival, you can at least tell them and hold them responsible for staying in their room for two weeks or whatever.

Second is making it possible for those who value the safety of their parents, family and loved ones to still get an education of some kind. It is well known that online is not as fun as in-person. Significant numbers of people demand in-person regardless of the possibility of infection. But those who value their lives and those of their parents, over the long haul, are going to need to withdraw from some of these in-person activities. Such things as band, football, etc. will simply have fewer people as the ones who value their continued existence go in other directions. All classes should be encouraged to be online or at least make it possible for people online, at least for the fall semseter, so that those who want to survive can still carry on. Make routes to stall such things as labs and hands-on components, so that they can do them later. This won't last forever though it might last through the winter.

And meanwhile what we will see is huge spikes in infection in the college towns. No big surprise. You close the bars, and they have house parties. It may be that college students, being young and in great shape and all, will have less than the 1% death rate that the rest of us have. It may be that their parents have slightly more, having raised teenagers and all. But there will be a toll, and the real question is how responsible the college is for what happened. They are, after all, responsible for the minors in their charge.

One of my alma maters, University of Iowa, is sitting in the worst town in the world at the moment. That could be because after 30,000 students came back they found over a thousand positives. In some states like Iowa over 3% are infected already and it's going to be slightly higher for students than for others because they're younger and they get around more. We are lucky that the predominant strain these days, though more infectious, is actually less deadly than what we started out with (I read that somewhere, can't remember where, not sure about its accuracy). But I can practically see these 30,000 crowding the streets infecting the rest of the town as they buy their supplies, go drinking, fix a flat tire, whatever. It's not good for the town. It's everyone for themselves and it's a jungle out there.

Another school I'm associated with is University of Kansas, where my daughter works. They reopened and brought about 30,000 back, and got quite a few cases. At least they tested them the minute they got there. A minority of students want them to close down. The school of course wants to lock in tuition and just get through the semester. They have warnings out: they want students to social distance. HA HA. They want them to not drink too. Especially not, whole bottles of whiskey in one gulp.

What is a solution for a school like this? Or like Alabama, over a thousand cases? You are in a state where it's already run rampant. You know one out of a hundred, roughly, will die. But you have to carry on because school is an experience where your community goes through things together.

That last part is key. You have online classes, and presumably online activities. You have to develop online social experiences too, and some kind of social interaction that can glide you through isolation. I have a son who enrolled in New Mexico State, a fairly typical university. Everyone came back to Las Cruces; hundreds of cases, not even sure how many. He chose to stay home and they let him take all online classes. Now he's depressed (understandably) because college is social experience and he's losing out. How can we get him through the fall? I'm not sure but I want him to still be alive in January, so that, if he goes to college, he has a chance. But it's important to me that I stay alive too, and his mother, so that we can continue raising his brother and sisters. He's still part of this family. He will still come back holidays even if he moves away for a while. We as a family need to ensure our own survival.

And that's why I think the college did the right thing to at least act to ensure his own survival. To some degree, spreading infectious disease is like drinking too much whiskey - you can't stop people from doing it. Life has to adjust so that people who are determined to get out there, can, and the rest of us can go on living. I read about people who are determined to not be afraid, to get out there, to run around; let them. I think we should concentrate on sustainable ways of surviving, so that when the dust clears, we'll know how to educate our kids without killing them.

posted by tom @ 9:07 AM