Covid-19 at Southern Virginia University and the University of Alabama
As the world has been hit with the COVID-19 pandemic, schools have had to make adjustments and institute plans to keep students guarded against the virus. Some schools, like Southern Virginia University, have successfully continued on-campus instruction. Others, like the University of Alabama, have not. This is not necessarily due to school size alone, but instead can be linked to issues of proximity.
The Southern Virginia University Healthy Campus Hub reported two positive COVID-19 cases, and two individuals who came into close contact with them before quarantine. On the other end of the spectrum, the University of Alabama reported 1,367 positive COVID-19 cases. This does not include the 381 positive cases that happened during entry testing, which brings the total to 1,748 positive COVID-19 cases at the University of Alabama (not including alternate campuses).
The University of Alabama has a population of 40,520 students and faculty. Southern Virginia University has only 1,072 students and faculty. This means that roughly 0.19 percent of the Southern Virginia population has tested positive for COVID-19. If the University of Alabama matched that same percentage, there would be about 76 positive cases. In reality, about 4.31 percent of the University of Alabama has tested positive for the virus. That is 23 times more than Southern Virginia University.
One reason this may be is proximity. While the University of Alabama has 38 times the population of Southern Virginia University, its campus, at 1,143 acres, is only seven-and-a-half times bigger than Southern Virginia’s which is 155 acres.
This means that Southern VirginiaUniversity has just over five times as much space per student, allowing students to social distance much more easily.
In addition to this, Southern Virginia University is uniquely equipped to handle pandemic requirements and social distancing needs as an Apple Distinguished School. Students and teachers each receive an iPad, on which they can take classes remotely. Therefore, both at-risk individuals and possibly infected individuals can remain home without any penalty to their academic success, making it more likely that infected persons will stay home.
The policies set in place by the University of Alabama are extremely similar to those instituted at Southern Virginia University. A letter sent out to students and faculty at the University of Alabama regarding their return to campus plan reads, “All faculty, staff and students working on campus are required to complete health checks truthfully and daily.”
The University of Alabama also has mandated masking, social distancing, and reporting symptoms just like Southern Virginia. Unlike Southern Virginia, the University of Alabama also required a negative COVID-19 test for each student and faculty member before they were allowed to return to campus to begin the 2020 fall semester.
However, although the University of Alabama return-to-campus plans were similar, if not more thorough in some areas to those of Southern Virginia University, the proximity of students at the University of Alabama did not help to prevent the spread there.
