Absent uniform or scientifically-accurate federal standards, American colleges and universities are charting their own courses to varying degrees of success. Those institutions already face known economic pressures, and implemented an array of strategies to mitigate the pandemic.

Every sound reopening strategy has four common elements:

1. Widespread testing and contact tracing

2. Quarantines and social distancing measures

3. Transparent communication of data/policy

4. Innovation

The United Nations believes an unprecedented level of international cooperation is required to stop the pandemic. Its most senior patron—the United States—joined Libya and Iraq to vote against an international framework. Despite the setback, the lesson is clear, organizations and colleges require unprecedented levels of cooperation to control outbreaks. We find institutions must remove unjustified obstacles, from bureaucratic red tape to poverty, to combat the virus.

Enforcing public health orders is a problem facing everyone, not only colleges. In some cases, colleges expelled students from campus for violating public health orders. Other schools rely on voluntary compliance with far less success. Generally, colleges cannot legally require testing of off campus students, a tension that state law or new regulation must rectify so school health procedures work as intended.

COMMON PROBLEMS

Colleges and universities often face identical challenges. Noncompliant student populations often warrant harsh enforcement measures. College parties are not the only problematic element of university life in the COVID era. The disease spreads on vapor molecules and infects via the nose. Contact sports, cafeterias, classrooms, gyms, and libraries all run afoul of the same basic principle that exposure to coronavirus for periods over 15 minutes dramatically increases the rates at which severe infections occur. Minimizing exposure to under 15 minutes—and compliance with mask use, social distancing orders, and washing hands can prevent disease transmission altogether.

In addition to the predictable challenges of the college experience, social forums propagate misinformation to undermine trust in science, public officials, and public health procedures. ‘Anti-vax’ conspiracies circulate on college campuses and political misinformation even comes from sources within the university. People isolated from good examples are less likely to find a productive channeling of the misinformation, where a professor is more likely to correct them. Instead, most colleges' failures to adequately prepare for remote instruction have left students forced to teach themselves or, more likely, spend their time on the social media channels under constant assault.

Reducing arbitrary rules is one way to mitigate the dissent. We can make public policy based on scientific data, to remove ideology from the equation. This concept is scalable and can be replicated at a state, business, and university level.

STRATEGIC ANALYSIS

Testing and Contact Tracing

Widespread testing and contact tracing are crucial elements of any sound reopening strategy. Testing, especially with < 24-hour turnaround, can show public health officials exactly where the virus is at any given point of time. Contact tracing, an arduous process on the surface, prevents more massive outbreaks and community-wide lockdowns. Robust contact tracing programs allow for reasonably immediate isolation and limited quarantines of specific individuals exposed to COVID.

Effective Strategies:

Daily Testing (ideal):
The University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign
Policy: All students tested daily
Result: No widespread outbreaks

Partial Testing (economic):
Purdue University
Policy: 10% of population tested weekly - targeted tests as needed
Result: Some cases, no outbreaks. The school chases new covid cases rather than prevent them.

Ineffective Strategies

Test negative before returning
Notre Dame, Purdue
Policy: Notre Dame required students to test negative before returning to campus. Once on campus, however, the school conducted no organized testing policy.
Result: Covid outbreaks forced Notre Dame to cancel in person classes for two weeks. The school has not yet returned for in person classes.

Limited Testing
Liberty University
Policy: Testing for symptomatic cases only
Result: There are likely uncontained outbreaks of coronavirus due to the prevalence of asymptomatic carriers. Testing is insufficient to determine infection rates.

No Testing
College of Charleston
Policy: This college has no testing policy
Result: All successful reopening models require widespread testing. Uncontrolled outbreaks are the inevitable result.

Quarantines and Social Distancing

Successful college reopening strategies require ways to isolate and quarantine students who test positive for covid without sending them out to expose classmates or family members. Better yet, schools that invested in at-home learning have students safer at home from day one.

Effective Strategies:

Suspend in-person classes (Ideal):
WVU, UNC-Chapel Hill, JMU, others…
Policy: Some schools have suspended in-person classes for the duration of the pandemic.
Result: No widespread outbreaks following implementation. Schools who had students stay home in the first place avoid outbreaks entirely. Negative affects to mental health, student socialization, and other symptoms are unavoidable. Institutions must have strategies to check on student wellness.

Ineffective Strategies

Voluntary self Isolation
Univ. of North Georgia
Policy: Students with suspected cases of Covid are asked to voluntarily quarantine themselves.
Result: The school has not acknowledged a coronavirus outbreak. Voluntary self isolation has shown to be ineffective in other contexts.

Overcrowding Rooms
VCU, others
Policy: Dorm rooms or suites with more than 2 people in the room. Many schools have 3 or more people in the room.
Result: When exposures to coronavirus occur overcrowded dorms exponentially increase the rate of transmission.

Transparency

Transparency creates trust. Often hidden in a misguided attempt to save face, colleges find it tempting to hide rising case numbers. Frustration over unfounded objections to health policies contributes to an environment hostile toward honest dialogue. Secret agreements with arbitrary measures must be discarded in favor of science-based policies defensible in the public sphere. Access to public data also lets institutions crowdsource solutions to outbreaks in near real-time, as teams of public health scientists are engaged on social media critiquing policy and providing ways to improve plans. That feedback loop makes it easier to mitigate coronavirus outbreaks as they occur.

Effective Strategies:

Public health data available to public
Yale, Syracuse
Policy: All case numbers updated regularly and information on policies and regular status updates are made available to the public online and accessible to public health scientists.
Result: Often combined with other effective strategies. Colleges that embrace transparency are able to overcome outbreaks faster.

Ineffective Strategies

Stifle free exchange of public health data
AZ State, Univ. of Ala., UNC-Chapel Hill, others
Policy: Schools attempted to hide rising case counts by suppressing the free dialogue of employees or hiding infection numbers.
Result: Many schools already reversed course after facing mounting and widespread public criticism. At some point, all attempts to hide coronavirus case numbers will be uncovered.

Innovation

Necessity is the mother of all invention, and so the institutions that embrace innovation are finding news ways to apply their knowledge on the free market. The pandemic is forcing innovations in digital technology, healthcare, workforce poverty, community and social justice and climate change. Of course, research academies pioneer new tests and solutions in-house. That model is not easy to replicate, but it’s also not necessary. Ingenuity with the tools a school does have at its disposal can make up for deficiencies elsewhere.

Effective Strategies:

Monitor Wastewater
Syracuse
Policy: Syracuse is monitoring wastewater to detect localized dorm-level outbreaks before students even receive a test
Result: After continued monitoring finally yielded a positive result, Syracuse officials tested every resident of one dorm, finding and isolating three asymptomatic individuals infected with Covid. Contacts were notified and placed under quarantine.

Ineffective Strategies:

Doing Nothing
Multiple
Policy: Institutions that do nothing rely on outside forces to improve their circumstances. As yet, that strategy has not yielded successful results. No organized guidance is expected to materialize — at least any trusted guidance — until a Biden administration
Result: Forces beyond institutions control could act with decisive negative results on the institution’s future.

WAYS TO IMPROVE RESULTS

Generally, institutions can improve their testing and contact tracing methods by minimizing the turnaround time required for test results. Providing for on-campus screenings of the full population every day or two is an ideal policy to ensure public health officials know where the virus is on campus.

Institutions should make every effort to maximize the amount of data it makes available to the public. While the internal instinct may be to save face and to hide the extent of an outbreak, that action leads to worse outcomes. Decisive action, crowdsourced solutions and science-based policies can improve outcomes for everyone and prevent an outbreak from spreading.

Overcrowding is also a challenge at many universities. Many of them faced problems before the added strain from Covid. Individual rooms are ideal, but schools should incentivize commuting and online classes to reduce the viral load from an exposure.

Lessons Learned

Broadly, institutions should reduce or eliminate arbitrary rules and policies, opting instead to provide clear, science-based explanations for the policies that it implements. That will make it more likely to ground critical discussions in science and improved health outcomes.

Many facets of student life create opportunities for prolonged exposure (>15 minutes) to the coronavirus, including in-person classes, team practices, choirs, cafeterias, and any situation where students who have not remained isolated are in close proximity.

Ideally, colleges and universities would lock down campus, controlling or limiting access to comers and goers. However, most campuses are open and part of communities, making controlled access impossible. All universities struggle with the degree to which they should enforce the public health orders. Some have gone to the extreme length of dismissing students entirely, while others issue warnings, fines, suspensions and other traditional punishments. Enforcement is less effective than public buy-in, which should be sought in addition to strict enforcement mechanisms to discourage noncompliance and sedition.

Finally, many colleges must consider how they will investment in at-home learning experiences that justify inflated tuition costs. No student should pay full tuition for a premium and poorly implemented version of DeVry.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS: CONFUSION & UNCERTAINTY

Many public school districts in cities and towns representing more than 78,000 individual schools nationwide have been forced to close after briefly attempting to reopen. In Georgia and Wisconsin, for example, officials severely modified or scrapped reopening for all student grade levels.

It may not be the proximity of students in a classroom setting. Some administrators in affected school districts are placing fault with parents, who they say allowed their children to attend late summer parties and other gatherings that invariably exposed those children to the coronavirus.

Sixty percent of all independent school districts have elected to begin their fall semester on an all online basis. That’s up nearly eight percent from August. Of the largest school districts in the country, ten have reopened on a remote basis only. Others will attempt reopening in late September or October, while still other districts have had to abruptly change in-person instruction to an online model. Kids reveling in unsafe celebrations are just one issue affecting a return to the classroom. Many districts are scrambling amidst staff shortages in some communities where COVID-19 spikes have forced schools to remote learning.

In suburban areas around the nation, many parents are angry with school administrators over their failure to create safe learning environments for their children. However, districts are dealing with other issues, including classroom teachers who understandably refused to return to work, others took extended leaves of absence or quit. Critically needed protective equipment is in short supply, leaving many districts with no choice but to delay or abandon in-person instruction.

In New Jersey, a major high school district hastily flipped plans to a hybrid model after a majority of instructors and support staff said they would work from home only. And that decision in just one New Jersey independent district is having a ripple effect with other districts nearby that has created child care issues.

In some districts around the country, differing mandates and advice from local health officials has created confusion and uncertainty. School districts often overlap different local governing authorities where one may recommend a return to the classroom while another says it is unsafe.

ANOTHER YEAR OF OUR DISCONTENT

America’s top infectious disease specialist, Dr. Tony Fauci, is now unabashedly proclaiming we won’t be enjoying life as a pre-pandemic society — at least in the U.S. — most likely until well into 2021, perhaps at the end of next year. He cautioned that the development, manufacture, and ultimate distribution of a safe, effective vaccine will take many months or just around one year for Americans in the general populace to receive it — returning our society to be able to conduct activities as it was the pandemic began in earnest this past March.

Fauci told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that he disagreed with Trump’s declaration that the U.S. had “rounded the final turn” on the coronavirus — clearly more of the same tragic artifice that has hallmarked his statements about the severity of COVID-19 in this country since first cases were reported back in early February.

In remarks last week at Harvard Medical School, Fauci warned that Americans must be prepared to “hunker down” for the coming fall and winter because colder, damper weather conditions invariably will produce spikes in coronavirus infections as more people spend time indoors , which is the worst case scenario for a respiratory borne virus. Ultimately, it might be another year — well into 2022 — before sufficient numbers of Americans feel safe enough to return to an unmasked, non-socially distant life.

Fauci told Mitchell that chillier weather is especially troubling, as millions take their activities indoors. The U.S. daily new case baseline rate remains high — just under 40,000 new cases daily and deaths around 1,000 per day.

Guardedly, an optimistic report is that new cases of COVID in this country have dropped approximately 16% over the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database. Even though many states have been reporting positivity rates under 5% — a sign of progress with compliance and mandated guidelines — 14 states in the Midwest and South are rising again in advance of what many experts say will be a Labor Day spike like those from Memorial Day and July 4th holidays.

WILDFIRES AND COVID: A DANGEROUS DILEMMA

California, Oregon, and Washington state are in the midst of battling the most catastrophic wildfires in recorded history. More than 3.3 million acres have burned or are burning. Less than 30 percent of the hundreds of wildfires have been contained. Thousands are homeless, and rescuers are likely to record hundreds of fatalities — possibly more — before they even finish extinguishing the fires.

As if his wildfire tragedy were not bad enough viewed, the affected states — particularly California — are experiencing some of the worst air quality in decades. In the Los Angeles basin, home to eight million people, ‘smog’ levels are the worst since the 1960s. Scientists and health professionals all are warning that exposure to the polluted air is almost certainly evidentiary of increased COVID-19 cases.

Experts fear that residents of Los Angeles and Riverside counties are at highest risk to spiking cases of COVID-19, primarily because the enzyme the coronavirus uses to enter lung cells is more concentrated when air pollution is greater. Worse, people who have pulmonary-related conditions such as asthma or COPD — already at higher risk from the alarming rise in air pollutants, now faced the ‘double whammy’ of a higher danger of contracting COVID-19.

A number of recent peer-reviewed studies have established bleaker outcomes from high levels of air pollution and the coronavirus. In Italy, a recent report analysis demonstrated greater incidences of COVID-19, including higher infection and mortality rates, in regions of Italy where particulate matter increased by more than 200 percent.

The Los Angeles metro area and neighboring regions to the east, known as the “Inland Empire”, are now suffering from pollution levels not seen for more than 40 years — exposing hundreds of thousands of citizens with pulmonary diseases and conditions to increased risk levels of COVID-19. What’s even more troubling is that these same areas of Southern California have recorded the highest infection rates in the state. Elderly people, economically challenged persons, and citizens of color are most vulnerable.

FURTHER READING

• https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/08/25/covid-test-cases-college-fall-semester/5626639002/

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/09/02/college-coronavirus-privacy-laws/

• https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/09/11/912076989/adults-with-covid-19-twice-as-likely-to-have-eaten-at-restaurants-cdc-study

• https://apnews.com/911a83b084ec23debadbd92bf559916d