With all the trouble that some colleges have been having with coronavirus, and all the measures that they are taking, I thought that this guy, at this university (below), had his head screwed on straight.
Recall that the common feature of the current troubles at JMU and Radford is student parties. In particular, large private “social gatherings” that take place without regard for the risk of coronavirus transmission (Post #797).
And now we’ve had Dr. Fauci call attention to the risks involved in simply shutting down a university and sending the students home. Sure, they’re supposed to quarantine themselves for 14 days. But the risk is, you’re simply going to spread the university’s COVID-19 outbreak back into the student’s homes and communities.
So when I read this Washington Post article, I did the mental equivalent of a fist pump. Because this (below) is what a serious response to a campus coronavirus outbreak looks like. And it addresses what seems to be the number one problem, which is students holding large parties with no regard for the threat of coronavirus.
Here it is, emphasis mine. The source here is today’s Washington Post.
At the University of Illinois, where more than 700 students have tested positive in less than two weeks, administrators announced a ban on “gathering in small or large groups under any circumstances.” Students will effectively be subject to the equivalent of stay-at-home orders and banned from leaving their rooms for anything besides essential activities — attending class, purchasing groceries, solo outdoor exercise, religious services and medical visits. The college also plans to aggressively crack down on parties.
“We have been encouraged that the vast majority of our students have been compliant, and we believe this effort will require noncompliant students to make the choice to either comply or leave campus,” Chancellor Robert Jones said in a statement.
Whoever this guy is, based on that, I’d put him in charge. You can’t just bring students to the campus, hope for the best, then discharge them back home after getting a large fraction of them infected with coronavirus. That’s not a real plan. Looks to me like this guy has a plan. It’ll be interesting to see if this “lock down” approach actually works.
You can see the full University of Illinois document here. “Party hosts will face immediate suspension.” It’s almost as if they’re treating this as a serious threat to the public health.
