San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
SDSU CONFINES STUDENTS TO DORMS AS CASES CLIMB
Universities across U.S. struggling as masks, distancing ignored
They’ve been asked, told and cajoled. But in a response many find stupefying, college students from San Diego to Boston are widely refusing to wear masks or practice social distancing, triggering COVID-19 outbreaks.
A New York Times investigation says at least 51,000 students at more than 1,000 colleges and universities have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, forcing many schools to move classes online and to shut down dorms.
The viral hot spots include San Diego State University, which abruptly announced on Saturday that students living in on-campus housing will be confined to their dorms for the remainder of the Labor Day weekend. The order came on a day when the temperature hit 105 degrees near campus. Students are only being allowed to leave their dorms for such essential things as food, medical care and supplies. The university also asked students living off-campus, in the College Area, to do the same thing.
The edict comes as the number of SDSU students who’ve tested positive for COVID-19 rose to 223. The number was 64 a few days ago. SDSU also said the county is investigating multiple COVID-19 clusters within the university.
None of the infected students
has required a hospital stay, according to Dr. Eric Mcdonald, medical director of the county’s epidemiology department.
SDSU President Adela de la Torre complained Friday that the school was dealing with a “plague of parties.” But de la Torre did not crack down on student behavior until about 10 days after they arrived on campus.
At the same time, UC San Diego was developing problems ahead of its fall-quarter start later this month. The school announced Saturday that it has found traces of the coronavirus in wastewater from Revelle College. It immediately began human testing to look for the source.
The central question remains: Why are students everywhere acting contrary to their own interests, undermining their pricey pursuit of a rousing college experience?
The answer involves everything from human biology to the conflicting messages students are getting about COVID-19 from adults, say scientists and educators.
Scientists are especially quick to point to the fact that the brains of many 18- to 22-year-olds are not fully developed, affecting their ability to reason and understand the consequences of their actions. Some brains don’t fully develop until a person is 25.
Neuroscientist Frances Jensen,author of “The Teenage Brain,” refers to this period as an age of exhilaration that “has dangers, including impulsivity, risk-taking, mood swings, lack of insight, and poor judgment.”
The book struck a chord with Randy Timms, dean of students at SDSU, where hundreds of students have been observed roaming campus and nearby neighborhoods without masks.
“Students hear that they’re an adult, that they can vote, that they can go into the Army,” Timms said Friday. “But they’re still developing from a neuro-biological perspective.”
Many students do wear masks when they’re among family. But many also feel a sense of invincibility that’s ill-placed.
“The perception that this disease is of minimal impact to young adults is a misperception,” said Dr. Angela Scioscia, interim executive director of Student Health and Wellbeing at UC San Diego. “Some will become ill.”
About 25 percent of the COVID-19 infections reported in California are among people ages 18 to 34, according to the California Department of Health. The youngest of those people generally don’t become as sick as older people.
But they can still be highly infectious. Schools such as the University of South Carolina and University of Alabama
have each reported more than 1,000 positive COVID tests since the fall semester began.
Health officials say it isn’t clear whether college-age students will suffer the sort of long-term heart and lung damage that’s occurred in many older people.
The attitudes and behavior of college students nationwide also is being influenced by the fact that they’re members of Generation Z, the first generation that has always had access to cellphones, social media and the Internet.
“They’re digital natives, which makes them less ready and able to think of others — to be in community with others,” said Eeman Agrama-minert, director of residential life at UCSD’S Thurgood Marshall College.
“(Before the pandemic) you saw crowds of students looking at their phones. I rarely saw anybody making eye contact. It’s not necessarily a negative thing. It’s just that we have to acknowledge that this is generational, too.”
Even so, many of these students have been roaming their campus and college neighborhoods, hungry to mingle.
“Remember, most of us college kids have been basically locked up again with our parents since March and going back to college was like releasing all the Tiger King’s tigers at once,” said Jonas Jacobs of San Diego, who is taking a gap year from Boston’s Northeastern University. “Their behavior is disappointing but understandable.”
But he was quick to add, “There are many students who will disregard the rules and find ways to gather without socially distancing and ruin the entire college year for everyone else.
“I do not want to go back to school only to return home two weeks later because other students only care about partying.”
Jim Harris is trying to avoid that kind of scenario.
He’s the president of the University of San Diego, a private Catholic university that hopes to bring about 500 students back to campus over the next couple of weeks and place them in dorms where social distancing will be strictly enforced.
Point Loma Nazarene University also will add hundreds of students. And UC San Diego expects to place 7,500 undergraduates in dorms later this month.
UCSD will test students for COVID-19 upon arrival, and again roughly two weeks later. The school estimates that it will record only 35 to 50 infections in the initial wave of testing.
Making headway could be still be tough.
“I think students have been getting a mixed message nationally,” Harris said. “They’re seeing some adults who say that they don’t feel that have to wear masks. It’s a matter of freedom. They’re not always getting the message that they should be cautious.
“The solution to this is so simple: Wear a mask.”