Omicron fears spread on campuses
Colleges brace for worst, urge boosters, reinstate restrictions
Facing rising infections and a new COVID-19 variant, colleges across the country have once again been thwarted in seeking a move to normalcy and are starting to require booster shots, extend mask mandates, limit social gatherings and, in some cases, revert to online classes.
The threat of the omicron variant comes as a gut punch to schools that were hoping to relax safety measures this spring. Now, many are telling students to prepare for another term of masking, testing and, if cases get bad, limits around social life.
Cornell University shut down all campus activities Tuesday and moved final exams online after more than 700 students tested positive over three days. In a campus message, President Martha Pollack said there was evidence of the omicron variant in a “significant” number of samples.
“It is obviously extremely dispiriting to have to take these steps,” Pollack wrote. “However, since the start of the pandemic, our commitment has been to follow the science and do all we can to protect the health of our faculty, staff and students.
Hours later, Princeton University moved its exams online and urged students to leave campus “at their earliest convenience” amid a rise in cases.
Cornell and Princeton both report student vaccination rates of more than 98%.
After a fall with few coronavirus cases, officials at Syracuse University were “feeling pretty good” about the spring term, said Kent Syverud, the upstate New York school’s chancellor.
“But omicron has changed that,” Syverud said. “It has made us go back and say, until we know more about this variant for sure, we’re going to have to reinstate some precautions.”
Last week, Syracuse announced that all eligible students and employees must get COVID-19 booster shots before the spring term. Students will also face a round of virus tests when they return, and officials are weighing whether to extend an existing mask mandate.
Much is still unknown about the omicron variant and how big of a threat it poses. In the United States and many other nations, the delta variant is currently responsible for most COVID-19 cases.
But as colleges brace for the worst, many see boosters as their best hope.
More than 20 colleges have issued booster shot requirements in recent weeks, and others say they’re thinking about it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is encouraging boosters for people ages 17 and older, and Pfizer last week announced that a booster of its COVID-19 vaccine might offer important protection against omicron even though the initial two doses appear less effective.
Hundreds of colleges already require COVID19 vaccines, and some say boosters are an obvious next step.
Most booster mandates have come from small liberal arts colleges, but the list includes some as big as Boston University, the University of Notre Dame and the University of New Mexico.
The University of Massachusetts in Amherst was among the first to require the booster for students, saying all students must get shots unless they have medical or religious exemptions.
“The boosters are our best protection,” said Jeffrey Hescock, co-director of the university’s Public Health Promotion Center. “This demonstrates that we take public health seriously, and our students do too.”
Emily O’brien, a freshman at Umass, said the booster shot is a reasonable demand.
“If the past six months have shown anything, it’s that lots of people won’t bother to get vaccines — especially younger healthy people — if they don’t have a requirement to,” said O’brien, 18, of Bedford, New Hampshire.
Umass will also require masks at the start of spring term, and it’s sending students home with a rapid test to be taken near the end of winter break.
Many colleges planning for potential disruption next semester are contending with campus outbreaks that have arisen in the weeks after Thanksgiving.
Middlebury College in Vermont switched to remote instruction last week amid a surge in cases and urged students to leave early for winter break. Rising cases at the University of Pennsylvania led to a ban on indoor social events last week.
Other colleges that have extended mask requirements into next year include Wake Forest University, West Virginia University and Penn State.
Some other schools are already postponing the return to campus next month to avoid outbreaks.
And when students at Stanford University return to campus in January, they will be barred from holding parties or other big gatherings for two weeks. They’ll also be tested once a week and continue to wear masks indoors as requirements to attend in-person classes.
The measures aim to limit virus transmission without going too far in limiting the college experience, said Russell Furr, associate vice provost for environmental health and safety.
“This is something we’ve grappled with throughout the pandemic — how do we get a balanced approach?” Furr said.
The goal is to avoid the strict lockdowns seen early in the pandemic, when student mental health “really suffered,” he added.