Students return; college town infection rates soar
Universities warning against gatherings off campus
MUNCIE, Ind. – Just two weeks after students started returning to Ball State University last month, the surrounding county had become Indiana’s coronavirus epicenter.
Out of nearly 600 students tested for the virus, more than half have been positive. Dozens of infections have been blamed on off-campus parties, prompting university officials to admonish students.
University President Geoffrey Mearns wrote that the cases apparently were tied not to classrooms or dormitories but to “poor personal choices some students are making, primarily off campus.”
“The actions of these students are putting our planned on-campus instruction and activities at risk,” he said.
Similar examples abound in other college towns across the nation. Among the 50 large U.S. counties with the highest percentages of student residents, 20 have consistently reported higher rates of new virus cases than their states have since Sept. 1, according to an Associated Press analysis.
On average, infection rates in those 20 counties have been more than three times higher than their states’ overall rates.
Health officials fear that surges among college students will spread to more vulnerable people – older ones and those with underlying health problems – and trigger a new wave of cases and hospitalizations. Some worry that colleges could overwhelm hospitals already bracing for increasing cases of COVID-19 and flu this fall and winter.
“There’s this waiting game. Does it stay on college campuses or will it escape?” said Dr. Jeff Pothof, chief quality officer at the University of Wisconsin medical center in Madison, where cases among college students have been climbing.
While universities have emerged as hot spots in nearly every state, many of the worst outbreaks have been scattered across the South and Midwest. Of the 50 college counties analyzed by the AP, James Madison in Virginia had the highest infection rate, followed by counties that are home to the University of Georgia, Florida State and Indiana University in Bloomington.
James Madison University recently sent students home through September amid a surge in cases, the county averaging a weekly infection rate of nearly 90 cases per 100,000 people, or more than eight times the statewide average.
In the 10 counties with the highest infection rates, colleges have reported at least 15,000 cases among students and employees in recent weeks, though testing and reporting practices vary significantly and the actual number is probably much higher.
For many colleges, the return to campus was a carefully orchestrated process that took months to plan and millions of dollars to execute. But as safe as they’ve made their campuses, many colleges have struggled to curb off-campus gatherings that have been tied to thousands of infections.
Parties were blamed for dozens of cases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which brought students back in early August only to send them home weeks later.
Other schools have cracked down on parties and disciplined students. The University of Missouri in Columbia announced this week that it expelled two students and suspended three others for violating rules meant to slow the virus’s spread.
The outbreaks are increasingly straining relations between universities and their towns.
Amid a spike in cases at the University of Colorado at Boulder, county health authorities Tuesday urged all students to quarantine for two weeks. Students and others at the university have accounted for 76% of the county’s 663 positive cases over the past two weeks, officials said.
Some cities have tightened rules at bars to discourage students from gathering. As cases surged at Illinois State, the town’s mayor required all bar customers to be seated to be served. He also limited gatherings near campus to no more than 10 people.
Still, residents and officials in many college towns are rooting for universities to work through outbreaks and avoid campus closings that could further hurt the local economy.
Fred Pryce, who manages a series of stores in a strip mall near Ball State, said sending students home would hurt the area’s businesses “big time.”
“That’s 20,000-plus potential patrons that will vanish,” Pryce said. “There are ways to keep students in Muncie safely while they do their classes.”
Ball State, roughly 60 miles from Indianapolis, has about 22,000 students on a campus of red brick buildings and sleek, modern dorms in Muncie, where the university is the city’s second-largest employer after Ball Memorial Hospital.
On campus last week, sophomore La’Tricia Williams, wearing a mask, said she was glad to be back instead of sitting on the couch with her laptop at her family’s home, taking online classes.
“But I get that it comes with some risk,” she said. “You can give students a whole bunch of rules for what they should and shouldn’t do while they’re back at the school, but they’re not going to stop doing certain things here or going out into the community.”
Caleb Henry, a Ball State junior who lives off campus, said that he and other students have been frequenting local bars and meeting at friends’ houses but that he and most others are behaving responsibly, with masks and social distancing. He said students are being vilified unfairly.
“Everyone seems to be getting upset at college kids right now, accusing us of spreading the virus and making us out to be these highly infectious creatures that need to be sent home,” Henry said. “What about all the other people around town going to bars ... having parties, weddings, whatever? We’re only doing the same things they are.”
While some colleges have sent students home amid outbreaks, many others are digging in. Some have moved classes online but urged students to stay where they are until cases drop. Among them is the University of Notre Dame, which paused in-person classes Aug. 18 and moved them online amid a surge that saw as many as 89 new cases per day. Weeks later, after a sharp decrease in infections, classes have started to resume on campus.
In a recent call with governors, Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, cautioned against sending students home, saying that could spark outbreaks elsewhere.