More than half of college presidents responding to an American Council on Education survey reported it was “very likely” their institutions would resume in-person courses this fall. Tufts University and Harvard University in Massachusetts, Yale University in Connecticut, Notre Dame in Indiana, the multi-campus University of Michigan, Washington University in St. Louis, Rice University in Houston, Columbia University in New York, and Hofstra University on Long Island, all plan to reopen campuses in the fall with face-to-face instruction. Stanford University in Palo Alto, California plans to reopen with everyone wearing face masks and practicing social distancing, with limited classes, a mix of in-person and remote coursework, fewer students living on campus, and a shorter semester. The California State University (CSU) system with 23 campuses has canceled in-person classes this fall and will continue with online instruction.
In an interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and frequent television commentator on the Corona pandemic, laid out recommendations for the possible reopening of colleges for face-to-face instruction in Fall 2020.
One model proposed by Dr. Fauci is testing all the students before they enter the campus for Corona infections and the presence of antibodies to see if they were previously exposed. Initial universal testing would be followed by regular random tests to identify and minimize a possible outbreak. Dr. Fauci expects “There likely will be infections as you get into the fall and to the winter. What you need to do is to be able to identify, isolate, and contact trace them to the point where those little blips you might see don’t turn into substantial outbreaks.” Residential universities will need facilities where they can isolate students who have relatively mild infections. Some universities plan to eliminate breaks and consolidate instruction this fall to limit off-campus interaction, but that does not address student internships, students who have off-campus jobs, or students who commute to campus from home.
The Chronicle of Higher Education asked Dr. Fauci, “If you were a professor, would you be worried about going back to your campus?” He responded, “There’s always a level of anxiety when you’re dealing with an outbreak that is still alive. It isn’t as if we’ve completely suppressed the virus throughout the country, which always leads to vulnerability, particularly when you’re dealing with a situation where you have a lot of people grouped together as you have on a college campus. The best you can do is try to mitigate that by common sense, not hanging out in groups of many people — try to keep it less than 10. Wear a mask, keep physical distancing, and do the best you can.” Dr. Fauci, who is 79 years old, did not address accommodations for older faculty or faculty and students with other high-risk conditions that make them especially vulnerable.
Isaac Chotiner, a staff writer at The New Yorker interviewed Dr. Asaf Bitton about recommendations on how to best protect against a new Corona upsurge as public spaces reopen. Dr. Bitton is a primary-care physician and public-health researcher and director of the Ariadne Labs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard’s School of Public Health. As colleges and schools, including Hofstra University where I work, prepare for face-to-face instruction in Fall 2020, these are my six take-aways from the Chotiner interview.
1. Social distancing when consistently practiced by everyone minimizes the spread of the Corona virus. Social distancing means a minimum of six feet between people at all times.
2. Masks help because of their containment capacity, rather than preventing an individual from being infected. If everyone wears a mask, we limit the spread of the virus to other people. In classrooms, halls, pathways, dorms, bathrooms, libraries, food service areas, everyone must wear a mask.
3. Indoors, good ventilation and increasing the time interval that separates people from touching the same surfaces are crucial for safety. Coughs or sneezes by an unmasked person can spread virus containing droplets as far as twenty feet or more.
4. Riskier interactions happen in densely packed indoor spaces with poor air circulation and surfaces, chairs, desks, computers, and door knobs, that are touched by multiple people. The virus can remain on metal or plastic surfaces for up to three hours.
5. Super-spreader events usually involve people talking for long periods of time in an enclosed space. That means classrooms can be risky places.
6. The difficulty maintaining social distances, providing adequate ventilation, keeping surfaces clean and disinfected, and ensuring that students and staff wear masks, may be even greater challenges in pre-K through 12th grade schools because you are dealing with children, adolescents, and teenagers.
I would like schools and colleges to reopen in the fall, but I am not convinced necessary safety precautions will be satisfied in the United States. In Singapore, when schools reopen in June, pre-school and elementary school children will receive hand sanitizers and a face shield they are required to wear. I know it is often difficult to understand someone talking through a mask. If we open as planned in the fall, American schools and colleges should follow this lead and issue every teacher, staff member, and student, as well as anybody else who enters a building or steps on campus, hand sanitizer and a face shield. I promise to wear mine.
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