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COVID-19 Infections Rising Among Young People on US University Campuses

Protesters march opposing in-person classes at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Aug. 17, 2020. More of the state public universities are opening for the fall term.
Protesters march opposing in-person classes at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Aug. 17, 2020. More of the state public universities are opening for the fall term.

Reports of COVID-19 cases are growing on university campuses as schools reopen for the fall semester.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill quickly reversed its in-person classes as 135 positive COVID-19 cases, 130 students and five employees emerged after the first week of classes from Aug. 10 to Aug. 16.

“We have seen COVID-19 positive rate rise from 2.8% to 13.6% at Campus Health,” stated a letter posted on Monday to the university’s website.

Almost 1,000 (954) students have been tested, 177 are in isolation and 349 are in quarantine, both on and off campus, according to the letter. The university will shift all undergraduate in-person instruction to remote learning, effective Wednesday, Aug. 19.

FILE - People remove belongings on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., March 18, 2020.
FILE - People remove belongings on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., March 18, 2020.

Oklahoma State University announced Aug. 15 there were 23 positive COVID cases in an off-campus sorority house. The entire house is in isolation or quarantine and will be prohibited from leaving the facility.

The University of Wyoming also reported Monday 38 active cases among students and staff.

Two involve students living in the university’s residence halls, and the other 36 cases involve students and employees living off campus. Both groups are in isolation.

Boston University’s ‘COVID-19 Testing Data Dashboard’ showed eight positive tests cumulative from July 27.

The University of Notre Dame in Indiana also saw a spike in COVID-19 cases, reporting 59 confirmed positive cases out of 654 total tests since Aug. 3.

Notre Dame officials stated in a letter, “the vast majority of the positive cases appearing in the university’s dashboard this week can be traced to a SINGLE off-campus gathering.”

“The students involved were forthcoming in sharing information with contact tracers. They shared who they interacted with, when and for how long. They also indicated individuals at the gathering were both outside and inside, together for some time, not wearing masks, in a crowded space, and drinking,” it continued.

A New York Times survey of 270 higher education institutions uncovered 6,600 COVID-19 infections among students and staff, as well as 14 coronavirus-related deaths over the course of the pandemic.

In the list, the University of Texas at Austin recorded the most positive cases, with 449 from March 1 to July 28.

University of Central Florida came in second with 438 cases, and University of Georgia recorded 390.

Although many colleges and universities offer comprehensive reopening plans with mask-wearing and social distancing guidelines, research shows that even with such reinforcements the virus would still roam throughout campuses, causing complications.

Philip Gressman, a professor of mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, and Jennifer Peck, an economics professor at Swarthmore College, created a simulation to “determine whether in-person instruction could safely continue during the pandemic and evaluate the necessity of various interventions.”

Patrons stand on the Bear Trap's rooftop bar on The Strip, the University of Alabama's bar scene, Aug. 15, 2020, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Patrons stand on the Bear Trap's rooftop bar on The Strip, the University of Alabama's bar scene, Aug. 15, 2020, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

The simulation studied the spread of a highly transmissible virus, such as COVID-19, at reasonably large research university and monitored the efficacy of interventions, such as contact tracing, mask-wearing, online instruction, etc.

It consisted of 20,000 students and 2,500 instructors who interacted daily for 100 days.

The results of Gressman and Peck’s model analyzed that a scenario with no interventions from the university would result in the number of people initially infected doubling every 2.185 days.

In other words, more than 2,000 people would be infected within 30 days of the first infection, and about 20,126 people, or 89.4% of the total campus population, would end up infected.

The model also studied the outcome of standard intervention, which would be a combination of quarantine and contact tracing, universal mask-wearing, daily randomized testing of 3% of the university community, and transitioning all classes with 30 or more students to online-only interaction.

Full standard intervention measures in universities “avoid the epidemic tipping point altogether” and keeps cumulative infections below 66 (out of 22,500) in more than 95% of simulations, according to the study.

Gressman and Peck wrote that allowing large in-person courses would increase infections from 43 to 538, and online classes with more than 30 students was the most effective at keeping infection rates low.

Parents and students arrive in their vehicles for health screenings and temperature checks before moving into residence halls at West Virginia State University campus, July 31, 2020, in Institute, West Virginia.
Parents and students arrive in their vehicles for health screenings and temperature checks before moving into residence halls at West Virginia State University campus, July 31, 2020, in Institute, West Virginia.

Requiring masks was moderately effective: not requiring masks would increase median infections to 131, they wrote. Random testing and contact tracing had the lowest impact, with removing either measures increasing infections to 50 and 47, respectively.

Researchers Kim Weeden and Benjamin Cornwell from Cornell University in New York analyzed how students are interconnected on a college campus and the implications of resuming in-person instruction during the coronavirus pandemic.

Weeden and Cornwell’s study stated that students are “highly interconnected” through their courses and that the nature of enrollment networks makes student populations susceptible to high rates of transmissions.

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Record 1.1 million international students in US, report finds

FILE - Students walk past the Thorne Hall at Occidental College campus in Los Angeles, July 27, 2023.
FILE - Students walk past the Thorne Hall at Occidental College campus in Los Angeles, July 27, 2023.

The U.S. has set a new record for international students, hosting more than 1.1 million students during the 2023-24 academic year, a new report says.

That's according to Boundless, which says its mission is "to empower every family to navigate the immigration system more confidently, rapidly and affordably."

Read the full story here. (November 2024)

Nigeria ranks No. 1 among African countries sending students to US

FILE - UCLA students celebrate during a commencement ceremony inside Pauley Pavilion on UCLA campus, in Los Angeles, June 14, 2024.
FILE - UCLA students celebrate during a commencement ceremony inside Pauley Pavilion on UCLA campus, in Los Angeles, June 14, 2024.

Nairametrics, an African news website, says that Nigeria has become the No. 1 African country sending students to the U.S.; worldwide, it's No. 7.

Read the story here. (November 2024)

International students face barriers in applying to Princeton, students say

FILE - The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs is pictured at Princeton University in Princeton, NJ.
FILE - The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs is pictured at Princeton University in Princeton, NJ.

International students face special challenges in applying to Princeton University, a story in The Daily Princetonian, the campus newspaper, says.

They include navigating Princeton's "holistic" immigration process.

Read the full story here. (November 2024)

International students at Amherst ponder visa concerns in Trump administration

FILE - US President-elect Donald Trump attends a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket, in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., Nov. 19, 2024 .
FILE - US President-elect Donald Trump attends a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket, in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., Nov. 19, 2024 .

International students at Amherst College talk about Donald Trump's upcoming U.S. presidency and what it might mean for them in this story from the student newspaper, The Amherst Student.

Specifically, they worry that the new president's administration might make it harder to get visas to study and work in the U.S.

Read the full story here. (November 2024)

Several students charged in hazing case at University of Alabama

FILE - The Autherine Lucy Clock Tower at the Malone Hood Plaza stands in front of Foster Auditorium on the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa, Ala., June 16, 2019.
FILE - The Autherine Lucy Clock Tower at the Malone Hood Plaza stands in front of Foster Auditorium on the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa, Ala., June 16, 2019.

Several students were accused in a reported fraternity hazing incident at the University of Alabama in which a pledge said he was shoved, stepped on and had things thrown at him, according to NBC News.

Four men, age 20 to 22, were charged with two counts of hazing at the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. NBC News reports that some of the actions were captured on video. (October 2024)

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