Who’s to Blame for Rising Coronavirus Rates on College Campuses?

As universities around the country begin planning their spring semester, concerns around “the failures” of many universities to protect students in the fall are resurfacing. Underneath all of them lies the question of culpability; whether the students themselves are to blame for rampant rates of COVID-19 on campus, or whether administrators are at fault for bringing students back to a centralized location.

Many college students, especially those of us at UNC Chapel Hill, have felt the blame of the pandemic in our town, and for good reason. In the first week of classes, after thousands of students had returned to campus, the rate of positive tests for UNC staff and students jumped from 3% to 14%, according to the CarolinaTogether website (UNC-Chapel Hill CV-19 Dashboard). Most of these students had been quarantining in the months leading up to school, and were no strangers to the practice of social distancing.

On top of that, the university laid out clear community standards that every student signed off on, including standards regarding mask wearing, testing, and physical distancing. So it’s not as if students didn’t know what the University was asking of them. Maybe it’s that they didn’t have their own PPE? Well, UNC also put together Carolina Together Care Kits, containing two masks, hand sanitizer, a thermometer, a no-contact door opener, and flyers reiterating the community guidelines.

On multiple occasions, students were informed and prepared with all the information possible to make decisions in their best interest. And yet, many students made the purposeful choice not to adhere to those guidelines, to not wear the masks they were given, and to put themselves and their community in danger. Why shouldn’t we blame ourselves?

UNC administration was well aware that students wouldn’t adhere to the guidelines, long before we even arrived on campus. I mean, if you were suddenly uprooted and sent to live at home in isolation for over four months and then came back to a place where all your friends were, wouldn’t you want to see them too? It was unreasonable for UNC administrators to expect the approximately 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students to all social distance. Even if 90% of us did, there would still be 3,000 students flouting community guidelines, seeing one another, and spreading the virus.

UNC had a clear motive as well: money. If the school announced they would be in person, more students would return for the fall semester, and they could fill the dorms and dining halls to their delight. After all, the university is a business.

The cherry on top was the recommendation from the Orange County Department of Health that came days before the semester was set to begin, encouraging online instruction for the first five weeks of class and expressing concern over the amount of students living on campus. UNC administration ignored this recommendation, keeping it from staff and students for as long as possible (Ellis and Rao).

It’s clear that administrators held all the information they needed about the semester, and chose to ignore experts, allowing students to return students to Chapel Hill only to shut down a week later. They knew it wasn’t a smart decision and knew COVID-19 rates would increase.

In the end, I think it’s everyone's fault. UNC knew better than to bring us back. Their lack of transparency and genuine concern for students caused rates to skyrocket in the first week of school, with the rate of positive covid tests reaching over 13% at one point (Somasundaram). On the other hand, students who did come back should have acted more responsibly. There are ways to see people, while still being safe and showing concern for your peers.

As we move into this semester, this question of culpability is more relevant than ever. UNC’s administrators have decided to hold some in-person classes this semester, drawing thousands of students back to campus. This is particularly contentious, as rates of coronavirus around the country are at their highest ever, with over 100,000 cases being reported each day (The New York Times). All eyes will be on UNC next semester as we try once more to safely hold classes while the pandemic rages on around us.

References

Ellis, Maddie, and Sonia Rao. “Orange County Health Director Calls for UNC to Go Fully Remote for at Least Five Weeks.” The Daily Tar Heel, 6 Aug. 2020, www.dailytarheel.com/article/2020/08/ochd-recommendations-0806.

The New York Times. “Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 Mar. 2020, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html.

Somasundaram, Praveena. “UNC Reported 135 New COVID-19 Cases. Here's What's Happening at UNC System Schools.” The Daily Tar Heel, 20 Aug. 2020, www.dailytarheel.com/article/2020/08/unc-system-covid.