Campuses reopen, but data shows fresh outbreaks

Coronavirus cases have continued to emerge by the tens of thousands this year at colleges, a New York Times survey has found, after students returned to campuses at a time when case numbers were soaring across much of the country.

More than 120,000 cases have been linked to U.S. colleges and universities since Jan. 1, and more than 530,000 cases have been reported since the beginning of the pandemic. The Times has also identified more than 100 deaths involving college students and employees. The vast majority occurred in 2020 and involved employees.

Nearly a year after most universities abruptly shifted classes online and sent students home, the virus continues to upend U.S. higher education. When many campuses reopened in the fall, outbreaks raced through dorms and infected thousands of students and employees.

Since students returned for the spring term, increased testing, social distancing rules and an improving national outlook have helped curb the spread on some campuses. At Ohio State, where the test positivity rate once peaked at about 5 percent, university officials reported a positivity rate of just 0.5 percent across 30,000 tests on campus in one recent week.

Still, major outbreaks continue. The Times surveyed more than 1,900 colleges and universities for coronavirus information and found at least 17 colleges have already reported more than 1,000 cases in 2021.

At the University of Michigan, a highly infectious variant turned up on campus.

At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where more cases have been identified in 2021 than during the fall term, in-person classes are resuming.

Despite surges at some colleges, there are positive signs. In counties with large populations of college students, cases have been falling, mirroring a national trend in declining cases.

With no national tracking system, and statewide data available only sporadically, colleges have been making their own rules for how to tally infections. While the Times’ survey is believed to be the most comprehensive account available, it is also an undercount.

Many universities, hoping to quickly identify cases and prevent broader outbreaks, have tested aggressively for the virus, detecting cases in some instances that might otherwise have been missed.