Does the incoming flood of college students affect COVID-19 cases on campus?
When universities opened up in fall 2021, many faculty members, staff, and students were concerned. Universities encouraged vaccinations but did not demand them. Even states enforced rules such as social distancing and mask mandates, but it was unclear whether breakouts would occur after the full reopening of classes.
Many of the universities are situated in a highly clustered county that most likely represents the community. They are permanently living in these counties because of family or friends. Therefore, in counties with a higher concentration of people, more COVID cases appear in data records.
Miami-Dade County is ranked as the highest in cases because of its high-density population. The data collected from the CDC showed Miami-Dade having 4,465 cases in a 14-day period in 2021: Oct 15 — Oct. 28. Broward, ranking in second place, had around 3,000 cases.
Miami-Dade is a cultural pot of mostly Hispanic communities. Many of these communities are home to commuter universities.
FIU is a commuter school located in the city of Miami, in one of the largest populated and COVID-packed counties: Miami-Dade. A large portion of the FIU population is from the community, lives in their parent’s homes or in apartments off campus. The higher the population of the surrounding community, the higher the number of cases at the university.
Mary Jo Trepka, Epidemiology researcher and FIU professor, noticed the differences between universities like Florida International University and the University of Florida.
“There is more of a cluster of people going back to UF once school starts that are not from the community,” she said.
UF is in the city of Gainesville, situated in a smaller and less populated county: Alachua. The county did not even reach the top 10 most COVID-infested counties. But more people travel to UF from all over Florida and different states in the U.S. FIU is in a bigger county where people permanently stay and drive to campus.
UF had a higher number of cases because it is a large university situated in a community where many people travel and stay on campus for short periods of time.
Fabiana Verastegui, 21, a junior studying veterinary at FIU, does not feel uncomfortable being on campus and worries people do not care about the virus.
“I still get a bit paranoid that people are not taking this seriously because I feel like, at this point, you should wear at least a mask out of respect to the other students,” she said.
She said a good chunk of the population wears masks, but the majority of people on campus refuse to wear coverings outside and in classrooms.
All universities revealed the 2020 COVID cases but most did not upload the current cases of 2021.
The University of Miami, a private school located in Miami-Dade, has more than double the cases that FIU has. UM’s current 2020–21 school year population is 17,809, while FIU has 58,836. UM houses 33% of its students on campus, while FIU only houses 5%.
Several universities have campuses closely linked to hospitals or medical facilities that assist doctors. UM has three hospitals, which increases the risk of contamination among students and faculty members. UM is one of the only health centers in South Florida that offer students to work in hospital facilities.
Sebastien Morales, 20, a senior student at UM said most students always wear their masks in classes and even in noncrowded spaces.
“I think plenty of students make a decent effort to stay safe, but most students are very careless,” he said.
He is not surprised UM has more cases than FIU when shown the data.
“I can see UM having more cases in part due to at least my perceived idea that there is a core close-knit community and higher density,” he said. “UM has a significant number of students in their dorms and that itself would logically lead to higher transmission rates.”
Sports such as football brought back stadium-packed games with thrills of feeling normal once again, while Homecoming in October brought live music for students on campus to enjoy.
Epidemiologist and professor from USF, Edwin Michael, researched if events or sports occurring throughout the fall of 2020 affected University COVID rates.
“We did this analysis last Fall and found that games with fans did not lead to significant outbreaks in the wide community post games,” he said. “We found that the main reason for any difference between county outbreaks surrounding these football games was whether face mask mandates were in place or not.”
He said the rate exposure of these big events like Homecoming will have to do with how vaccination rates stand.
“Some breakthrough infections may occur, but this would be small. Also, since students will have got their vaccines later than older groups, their immunity from vaccination would still be high enough to contain/prevent infection from any exposure.”
The third visualization shows the age group of 18–29-year-old age group. This age group typically represents a chunk of college students. Despite the controversies around the U.S depicting universities as hotspots for COVID-19, younger adults are more likely to get vaccinated, said Michael.
There are many factors that contribute to universities having high COVID-19 cases. However, with vaccinations and mask enforcement, the future may seem bright for incoming freshmen that want to experience the typical college lifestyle.
The data presented was sourced from:
The NYT 2019–2021 COVID-19 Tracker
