Covid-19: re-opening universities is high risk
Gavin Yamey, Rochelle P. Walensky
Abstract
Over a third of US colleges and universities fully reopened in August. 1 It was risky: at the beginning of the month, the US had about 55 000 new cases per day 2 and no federal covid-19 control plan or coordinated vision for safely reopening universities.Today, the national reopening experiment already looks to have been a disaster.Major campus outbreaks have led many large universities, including the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC) and the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, to shut down again.Only a week after classes started on 10 August, most of which were face to face, UNC, home to about 30 000 students, reported 130 new infections in students and five in employees. 3uring 1-27 August, there were 756 confirmed new infections at UNC. 4 This scenario has played out at universities nationwide, 5 and by 26 August, there had been at least 26 000 new infections at over 750 colleges and universities.