Students’ behavior threatens colleges’ reopening hopes
A recent outbreak of coronavirus cases at UC Berkeley, tied to summer fraternity parties, has highlighted a worrisome trend for colleges and universities: Young people are driving the virus’ recent rampage across the country.
The surge carries ominous implications for schools, including UC Berkeley and Stanford, planning to welcome students back to campus in August and September. That was already a daunting task, and now it’s complicated by this spike — which experts traced, in part, to many young people gathering indoors and not wearing face masks or socially distancing.
Their behavior — congregating, partying, defying authority — qualifies as perfectly appropriate for people their age in normal times. But it also underscores the challenge for college and public health officials in persuading them to follow guidelines to help control the virus.
Dr. George Lemp, a retired University of California epidemiologist now living in Sonoma County, has spent much of the past four months crunching numbers, trying to gain insight into the demographics of the pandemic. In the two weeks ending June 27, he saw counts skyrocket 76% among people age 1834 in California, compared with the prior two weeks.
Previously, the epidemic had spread mostly among older people, especially ravaging nursing homes. So this new dynamic caused Lemp great concern.
“To see a 76% increase among young people is quite startling,” he said.
Colleges noticed, even before the UC Berkeley episode. Last weekend, the University of Washington disclosed an outbreak of 121 coronavirus cases among students, mostly in fraternities. Harvard announced Monday that all of its fallsemester classes will be taught remotely, and Princeton and Georgetown said they will hold most of theirs online.
USC backtracked last week on its plan for a mostly inperson semester, citing an “alarming spike” in coronavirus cases in the Los Angeles area. More than 80% of classes now will be held online, according to a letter sent to students.
UC Berkeley and Stanford previously announced similar hybrid models, tilting heavily toward remote instruction. Stanford will stagger attendance — freshmen and sophomores in the fall and summer quarters, juniors and seniors in the winter and spring — while UC Berkeley will forbid inperson classes of 25 or more students for the fall semester, which begins Aug. 26.
A UC Berkeley spokeswoman said the school doesn’t yet know how many students will return to live in residence halls, and it doesn’t have a way to track those who are living offcampus.
Dr. Art Reingold, a professor of epidemiology at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, serves on several committees plotting next month’s start of the new academic year. He spoke of campus leaders’ sprawling efforts to curtail the student population on campus, limit the number of people in any room and reduce risk as much as possible.
“That’s a work in progress,” Reingold said. “Given that things seem to be going in the wrong direction at the moment, I don’t know what the university will decide to do. It’s a very difficult set of problems. We need to keep people safe.”
That quest becomes infinitely more challenging if young people — say, college students — ignore public health guidelines. Evidence emerging in the past two months illustrates the scope of the challenge.
As of May 13, according to state data analyzed by Lemp, the 1834age group accounted for 25.1% of all coronavirus cases in California, and an additional 3.8% of cases were among those under 18.
New cases over the next six weeks steadily skewed younger and younger, Lemp found. In the most recent twoweek period he studied ( June 1427), people age 1834 accounted for 36.5% of new cases and those under 18 represented 10.2% of cases.
Some of this can be explained by expanded testing, Lemp acknowledged, and the abundance of young people filling frontline jobs, such as grocery cashiers, that require frequent interaction with the public. But he said these factors alone probably did not cause the striking jump in cases among younger people.
This is not only a West Coast phenomenon, either. About half of the 614 people who tested positive in Dane County, Wis., from June 1326 were age 1825. According to University of Wisconsin officials, “many reported attending gatherings with friends or going out to bars.”
Or consider Saturday’s viral video from Cass County, Mich. Hundreds of young, swimsuitclad, maskless people bopped to music and drank beer, shouldertoshoulder.
This doesn’t bode well for college officials counting on students to adhere to mask and socialdistancing mandates. As Reingold put it, “At a fraternity party with alcohol and everything else, that may not be a realistic expectation.”
These are completely normal instincts for college students, of course. Just ask Hazel Markus, a Stanford professor of behavioral sciences who researches how people regulate their behavior.
Markus pointed to data showing ages 1824 as the time in life people are most likely to take risks. And the college experience extends well beyond the classroom, so students naturally pour ample energy into their social lives.
“Their life tasks are becoming educated, learning more about themselves and developing relationships outside the nuclear family,” Markus said. “It’s thickening your social network, finding friends, finding partners. That’s what colleges don’t advertise as one of their main roles, but of course it is.”
Samantha Laurey, a San Francisco State senior from Martinez, insisted most of her friends are careful about avoiding exposure to the virus, choosing to hang out in a small group at safe distances. Laurey also knows other friends cannot resist the temptation.
“Kids just completely miss the social act of going out and doing things,” she said. “As our parents say, this is our time to enjoy our lives while we’re young. But we’re living through a pandemic with no cure.”
Laurey, 23, acknowledged some of her friends figure they would recover quickly if they contracted the virus, given that older people are more likely to become severely ill.
Ryan Lund, who graduated from UC Berkeley this spring and will begin a fifthyear master’s program next month, hears similar logic from his peers. Lund, who limits his social outings, agreed it’s difficult to stay isolated from friends for an extended stretch.
“It is low risk for someone my age, and it can feel like you’re giving up your college experience for a distant threat,” Lund, 21, said. “I don’t see people potentially dying, so it’s like the bogeyman out there. It would be easy to be a little selfish. I know people who really struggle with that.”
Stanford will test the ability of its students to balance their social instincts with academic work and virus precautions. The school invited freshmen, sophomores and transfer students to live on campus for the autumn quarter starting Sept. 14, even though the “vast majority” of classes will be taught online.
Those living arrangements present the biggest health challenges. Gregg Gonsalves, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, fears that students returning to campus from around the world will “bring the virus along with their clothes and books.”
He compared dorms to cruise ships on land and prisons without bars, given the congregate living arrangements.
“People are in close contact and not super hygienic,” Gonsalves said. “If anyone has been in a dorm bathroom, it’s not pretty. It won’t surprise me in August and September if we see multiple outbreaks in colleges and universities across the country.”