Public Health Officials Fear College Students Will Spread Coronavirus
Few college students are landing in the hospital from the coronavirus but they remain the crosshairs of public officials who fear their parties and lax adherence to quarantine rules are bound to fuel community spread off-campus, hurting the vulnerable.
The
"Both were noncritical. These are the only instances we're aware of," university officials told
The coronavirus discovered in
The State University of
"I said, 'These are strong, young people. They're going to do great, let's get going,'"
The survival rate should also soothe skittish parents who saw their children off to an uncertain semester.
But health officials are wringing their hands as they look beyond campus, saying it's only a matter of time before rising case counts from Greek life and off-campus cavorting will spill into the community, reversing gains against the disease.
"We haven't been tracking this as much as we should," said
"Community spread is an issue all over the country, so there's certainly reason to believe cases spread from the university population into the general population," said
Among 50 large counties with the highest percentages of student residents, average infection rates have been more than three times higher than their states' rates overall since
More than 1,600 American colleges and universities have revealed at least 88,000 cases, according to a New York Times tracker. The colleges have reported least 60 deaths since the pandemic began, yet most of the deaths were campus employees back in the spring, not students.
Students who fend off the disease might not be out of the woods. The coronavirus is a newly discovered disease, so the long-term effects of infection aren't known.
Officials say young people who aren't landing in the ICU still have a responsibility to the wider community. They're using a mix of mandates or pleas as they track local numbers, viewing a high caseload among the campus cohort as a "canary in the coal mine" that portends an explosion of community spread.
In
The orders came on the heels over a recommended quarantine for all
"The exponential growth of COVID-19 cases must stop. I am concerned about the health and safety of the MSU community, and importantly, I am seriously concerned that unchecked transmission locally will affect the health and safety of all
"We need your help," state Health Secretary
While officials urge vigilance, some of the campuses that tallied high case numbers early in the semester are seeing progress.
The
"Evidenced by the testing rate of 1% throughout the UA System, our health and safety guidelines are effective. We are not aware of any UA students who are hospitalized," spokeswoman
Classes began online on
William Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at the
"Detecting them and isolating them and their contacts is good! A greater worry is the ability they have to transmit to others and this is probably happening more in the places without great testing," he said in an email. "As we know, a large outbreak in the younger population doesn't tend to stay there."
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