One week was all it took

In my review of the Cornell report justifying full re-opening of college campuses in the Fall, I discussed their rationale - an ambitious strategy to build a bubble on campus through a rigorous test, trace and quarantine program - and also expressed my skepticism about their myriad assumptions about human, especially college-aged, behavior. It seems like college administrators would be anxiously counting the days before they have to shut things down.

***

In the meantime, I occasionally come across the re-opening plans by other schools. Princeton and Harvard both opted for 100% online instruction. Many of the NYC schools take a "see no evil" approach. It appears that their administrators trust students, staff, faculty and visitors to self-report their symptoms to an app. If they say they have no symptoms, they are cleared to enter campus buildings. There are no systematic testing, tracing, or quarantine.

***

The Cornell model has already been proven more responsible, even before most colleges have re-opened.

The University of North Carolina commenced fall classes on August 10 with few of the requirements of the Cornell model. One week was all it took for the school to backtrack, and switch all undergrad classes to online only.

What happened during this week, according to this scathing editorial in the Daily Tar Heel:

• August 10 (Monday), school re-opened.
• By August 14 (Friday), two clusters have surfaced on campus residences.
• By August 15 (the first Saturday), a third cluster has been located at a frat house.
• By August 16 (the first Sunday), a fourth cluster in another dormitory.
• Administrators refused to disclose an official count for the total number of cases, citing "privacy". This sounds familiar. The UK government also said, in the early months when the coronavirus ravaged care home residents, privacy was the reason why it could not disclose the number of deaths at care homes.
• By August 17 (Monday), UNC disclosed that they had 177 students in isolation and 349 other students under quarantine. (Latest report here). Administrators ended the re-opening gambit, moving all undergraduate classes online.

Recall that in the Cornell model, the expected peak capacity for quarantine during the whole semester is 700 students. In one week, UNC has almost reached that volume. (UNC has slightly more undergrads than Cornell.)

Cornell could plan for fewer people under quarantine because of many tactics designed to keep infections contained. UNC deviated from the Cornell model in various ways. People returning to campus were not tested upon arrival. There isn't an ongoing compulsory testing program to find cases.

***

The situation is fluid even for NYC schools. I noticed that NYU added testing and quarantine policies last week (link). But these requirements are far less stringent than the Cornell model, which tests every person once a week, traces contacts of all cases, and quarantines all contacts. NYU tests those who come forward with symptoms, and will also conduct random testing although it has not stated how large that sample is.

What happened to the nation is about to get replayed on college campuses. Those schools that do not take test, trace and quarantine seriously will feel good about themselves for some time, and when cases start to pile up, they will realize the virus has already spread throughout the community. At that time, they have few options but to shut down on-campus instruction, and perhaps housing. The infectious students may then move off campus, taking the virus elsewhere.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Joe Cool]

Article on NPR (8/18/2020) on the military academies opening. Main difference I see is adults in charge with forced discipline and mostly frequent testing with results returned that day.

[daenris]

I'm not sure Cornell's reality is going to live up to their aspirations, based on early reports.
https://twitter.com/BugmanTim/status/1295756482370318339

[Kaiser]

D: That's pretty painful reading! Innocence lost for modelers :(