Coronavirus: And College Campuses

I've spent much of my life in Southern California, but also spent time in North Carolina. As some colleges are going back to in person learning, I figured I'd write a blog post about 3 universities in those states and the current impact of COVID-19.

The LA Times (Aug 24) writes the following about USC: 

In the past seven days 43 cases have been identified and more than 100 students placed in a 14-day quarantine due to exposures, the memorandum from Dr. Sarah Van Orman, chief health officer for USC Student Health, said. 

The university is testing students who are symptomatic and those who have had contact with positive individuals, as well as some asymptomatic students. All of the positive cases were related to students living off campus, the statement said. 

USC resumed instruction almost entirely online Aug. 17 and is limiting access to campus. But many students remain in private apartments and houses off campus, where they have reported some parties and gatherings of people from different households, a situation one public heath expert called a “recipe for disaster.” 

Here's me just asking questions, so even though USC instruction is "almost entirely online," students are still returning to apartments in the area? I wonder how many students are showing up to Los Angeles even though most of them are taking online classes? I doubt that USC is reducing their tuition much, but staying at home with parents will still result in lower room and board expenses. I'm thinking that young adults just want to be with their friends even if it is more expensive to do so. I obviously could be totally wrong on my assumptions for why students remain in apartments off campus. Maybe these students are just those who are taking classes on campus.

The News & Observer (Aug 24) has an article on UNC Chapel Hill:

UNC Chapel Hill reported 218 new COVID-19 cases among students Monday and updated its dashboard with more clusters identified in campus housing.

The new cases were reported between Friday and Sunday, bringing the total number of cases among students and employees to nearly 650 since classes started on Aug. 10.

UNC-Chapel Hill announced it was moving classes online for the fall just one week after beginning the semester.

It definitely looks like UNC Chapel Hill took a different approach from USC. It looks like USC went almost entirely online while UNC went with in person learning. Of course, it now looks like Carolina is having to shift to an even more extreme policy than USC.

WRAL (Aug 20) has this about Duke University: 

All of the universities use much of the same protocol, such as encouraging students to wear masks and discouraging parties. However, Duke has done some things a little differently.

For example only freshmen and sophomores are allowed to live on campus – and every student gets his or her own room.

Another key difference: Robust COVID-19 testing.

The article doesn't have any info on if Duke University is having some mix of online and in person classes. I'm just going to assume that Duke University is acting more like Carolina though they might be approaching this differently in terms of safety protocol. Of course, how much longer can this last before they have to go with online classes?

Other thoughts:

How much is the role of these universities' financial situation pushing certain decision making policies around in person classes?

These experiments could provide some interesting information on how the virus spreads.

It could also provide interesting information on how the virus impacts those between the ages of 18 - 22.