According to a story in US News and World Report, “Some colleges and universities inundated with spikes in coronavirus infections are sending students home despite high-ranking White House public health officials' warnings that doing so could ignite a national resurgence of COVID-19.” OK, first we need to make clear that when we are talking about “high-ranking” officials in the White House here, we are not talking about the tippy-top, meaning Donald Trump and his stooges, who have been advocating for “return to normal,” in-class schooling.
In fact, most reputable health officials have been promoting on-line classrooms, but many colleges and universities--especially in the South--ignored that advice, and once the inevitable occurred and positive tests started piling-up, it was those “other” White House officials, who Trump has been ridiculing, who had no choice but to confess that once the cows were let out of the barn, it was dangerous to allow them back in. According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
It's the worst thing you could do. When you send them home, particularly when you're dealing with a university where people come from multiple different locations, you could be seeding the different places with infection. Keep them at the university in a place that's sequestered enough from the other students so that you don't get a cluster in the university, but don't have them go home, because they could be spreading it in their home state.
Dr. Deborah Birx added that "Sending these individuals back home in their asymptomatic state to spread the virus in their hometown or among their vulnerable households could really recreate what we experienced over the June time frame in the South.”
Schools like the University of Washington are having 90 percent of classroom instruction done online, with only classwork requiring hands-on instruction being allowed in-class. But naturally many other schools, especially in the South, insisted on their “right” to do things the American Way, and ignored the warnings. Some schools didn’t even stay open a week before a spike in COVID-19 cases persuaded them to shut down. Others, like the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa, decided to remain open, with administrators providing guidance that wasn’t always logical--beginning with the fact that it relied on students altering their usual behaviors.
For example, back on Augut 23, UA president Dr. Stuart Bell issued forth this email after more than 500 students had tested positive for the virus:
Dear students, faculty and staff,
This is a critical moment for The University of Alabama.
Despite the robust testing, training, health and safety measures we carefully and clearly implemented, there is an unacceptable rise in positive COVID cases on our campus.
Make no mistake, this trend is a real threat to our ability to complete the semester on campus. The solution is proven: testing, mask wearing, social distancing, personal hygiene and compliance with crowd size limits are all that are asked as we work together to complete the semester together.
Violations to our health and safety protocols, both on and off campus, are subject to harsh disciplinary action, up to and including suspension from UA.
UAPD and the Tuscaloosa Police Department are partnering to monitor bars, restaurants and off campus residences where the city’s COVID-19 ordinances and UA guidelines are not being followed. Joint task force officers are risking their personal health and safety to protect yours. UAPD officers are also focusing efforts on our residence halls and Greek housing to ensure safety and compliance.
Completing the fall semester together is our goal. The margin for error is shrinking.
Now is the time to take action, commit to protect each other, and hold each other accountable. Thank you for taking your responsibilities seriously. Together, through shared sacrifice and commitment, we will achieve our goal.
It didn’t take long for some people to point out the cows-out-of-barn hollowness of the Bell’s statement. One guest columnist, Saul Alpert-Abrams, writing in the student newspaper The Crimson White, accused Bell of hypocrisy and holding him personally responsible for allowing the virus to make inroads on campus in the first place, for insisting on “preserving”the “Alabama lifestyle” and suggesting disapproval for online classwork, after one female student’s mother complained that her daughter was being “cheated out of a true collegiate education” without a “face-to-face”classroom environment. Could “he have foreseen that promoting a culture of partying and social togetherness on campus and attempting to preserve that culture at all costs would put the safety of our campus community at risk? Absolutely.”
Alpert-Abrams also noted the Trumpian language being used to “explain” away why things were getting out-of-control at the school, and that things were not really that “bad”:
In case you are doubtful of the connection I am making, as the number of COVID-19 cases on campus climbs with alarming speed, we received this familiar tidbit from our Faculty Senate President: “The large increase in positive student tests is primarily due to the University’s effort to test as many students as possible.” In addition, there is the fact that teachers are being threatened with a (probably indefensible) HIPAA violation for informing their students about a fellow classmate who tested positive for COVID-19, even anonymously. We have been assured that the classroom environment is 100% safe, and that if all the rules are being followed, there is no need to tell our students about potential exposure or move our classes online. It is a convenient way for the administrators to minimize evidence of the true nature of COVID’s spread, and it allows them to continue claiming with full confidence that no spread of cases has been traced to the classroom, again protecting administrative invulnerability.
Soon after, Bell took an entirely different tone:
Our challenge is not the students. Our challenge is the virus and there’s a difference, folks. What we have to do is identify where does the virus thrive and where does the virus spread and how can we work together with our students, with our faculty and with our staff to make sure that we minimize those places, those incidents. It’s not student behavior, OK. It’s how do we have protocols so that we make it to where our students can be successful, and we can minimize the impact of the virus.
Bell added this quizzical aside: “This virus does not follow our instructions very well.” What is he saying here now? In his earlier statement, Bell was stating explicitly that it was student behavior that was causing the spread of the virus, and he was implying that some kind of punishment was in order to modify that behavior. But here is saying that it is the places that people go, not what they do in those places, that is the “problem.” Bell was suggesting that it is certain places where the virus “congregates,” whether students “like” it or not, and that is the problem. Social distancing and wearing masks is not even mentioned here. How are students to know where the virus doesn’t like to go? Are we supposed to assume that crowded classrooms or lecture halls are where the virus tends not to be in attendance? How stupid is that kind of thinking?
In an op-ed on the subject in the Tuscaloosa News, Gary Cosby Jr failed to discern the dissonance between what Bell was saying now and what Mayor Walt Maddox thought the problem was: “Let me be clear ... I don’t think the bar owners really did anything wrong. They were playing by the rules. The issue that you have is that is where young people gather. We know through the contact tracing, that is one of the hot zones we have to address.” Bell implied that bars were a “problem,” and Maddox implies here that the students were the “problem.”
Cosby did somewhat more correctly opine that “Modifying human behavior is not just difficult, it is likely beyond the scope of schools or city governments to control. This leaves closing venues where people gather and are unlikely to practice social distancing and wear masks as the only option available to control the spread of the virus.” He also asserted that such behavior is unlikely to be self-modified unless students--much like the public at large--see or experience serious medical conditions. “The conundrum facing the civic and academic leaders in Tuscaloosa is that the positive test numbers don’t equate directly to hospitalizations, and the only number that matters from a public policy standpoint is those hospitalizations.”
So we are left with the question of whether or not it was a “good” idea to open college campuses for a “normal” school “experience” before a vaccine for the COVID-19 was approved and distributed. Probably not. Unlike some other countries, like Germany, the U.S. was behind the eight-ball from the start, and not just because of Donald Trump, but because of many “live free or die” types who fed off of his lack of concern. You can also add young people on college campuses who think they are immune from health risks. It isn’t that “hard” to wear masks and practice social distancing--even for allegedly “smart” people who may not be all that smart after all.
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