University of Miami junior Keri McGill, like many American college students, will be taking one last big test before she makes the trip home to Downingtown for Thanksgiving later this week: The COVID 19 test.

Shes cramming for it now, by self-isolating in her apartment.

Fortunately, our school offers free testing for students with 24-hour results, so I scheduled tests for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and Im isolating to make sure Ill be driving home with a negative result," McGill said.

American colleges and universities helped institutionalize the sense that we could all live with the coronavirus pandemic this summer when they rolled out plans to welcome students back to campus for the fall semester, albeit a semester unlike any most of us have seen before.

Now, students at most of those schools are planning their trips home for Thanksgiving break, and then a remote finish to the fall term just as the nation, and Pennsylvania in particular, is seeing a second wave of coronavirus cases that is breaking records for new positive tests by the week.

Thats unnerving to some public health experts.

Whats going to happen here is that many of them are going to travel home via busses and planes and trains, thereby exposing them to new exposures, and we know that more than half the transmissions in this country are attributable to young, asymptomatic, so-called silent spreaders. People like college students who - not just dont perceive themselves not to be at risk - theyre not feeling any symptoms. They feel just fine, said A. David Paltiel, a professor of health policy and management at the Yale School of Public Health.

Now youre going to sit them down at the dining table at Thanksgiving with Granny, who really is vulnerable, and thats where the risk lies.

Its a massive concern, agreed Krys Johnson, an epidemiologist at Temple Universitys School of Public Health. Weve been so immersed in the election and other acute issues that have been happening in our country that we dont realize how much worse things are right now than they were in April. And its not just New York City anymore. It is everywhere.

College students arent part of their familys bubble anymore," Johnson explained. "And really any time youre mixing bubbles it can be an issue. It really isnt just college students. It can be the grandkids going home to see grandma, and of course not wearing a mask.

Most schools reached for this story including Penn State, Pitt, Shippensburg, West Virginia and Liberty are actively encouraging students to get a pre-departure test so they can at least get a good read on their own status before they set out for home.

In the event of a positive, they are also offering students services and space to quarantine on campus for the necessary 14-day period, thereby protecting their families and friends from exposure.

We wanted our students and our parents to know what the status of their son or daughter is with respect to COVID, said Kelly Wolgast, director of the COVID-19 Operations Control Center at Penn State.

Penn State students along College Ave. get ready to watch their football team take on visiting Ohio State, outside Beaver Stadium because of COVID, at a watch party at Panzer Stadium, State College, Pa., Oct. 31, 2020.Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com

This is a moment in time, that is true, Wolgast said of the test results. But it gives folks knowledge and assurances of their health status at this time. And so I do think thats important. The more people know, the more likely they are to pay attention to their behaviors... while they travel.

Some smaller schools have been able to take an all-student testing approach.

Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, for example, has been testing all in-resident students once every three weeks, and is offering all students an additional chance to get a pre-break test this week. It has also encouraged students with concerns about potentially exposing friends or family members to consider a voluntary quarantine prior to departing.

Pitt has put the emphasis on the quarantine.

Administrators there imposed a shelter-in-place order on the campus last Monday to get students to lower the risk for COVID exposure during the two weeks prior to break. This was planned all along, said Dr. John Williams, director of Pitts COVID 19 Medical Response Office, but the start date was pushed up several days because of a recent uptick in cases there.

Then, when Pitt students are cut loose at the end of this week after 12 days of mostly remote classes, no in-person extra-curriculars and the like, they can sign up for a free, self-administered test through Quest that they would take upon arrival home to verify their status.

The universitys goal is that students complete their shelter-in-place with at home. With that and a negative test result, Pitt hopes it is arming students and their families with a potent two-step protection program for Thanksgiving.

Preventing COVID, Williams explained, is ninety-five percent about altering human behavior, and its five percent about having the testing... Because the goal of testing is to detect lapses in behavior; it is to detect when behavior has broken down. But the testing is not going to prevent infections.

"That (prevention) is all about the behavior, so most of the efforts should be going into that.

Whats shelter in place look like at Pitt?

Its actually not that Draconian. Students can still move about the campus or city for in-person labs or exams, to exercise, to study in the library or to do essential shopping. All dining services have switched to takeout only. The big drawback? No parties, as students are asked to limit close contacts to just roommates.

The key thing is for students to avoid having close contacts, or new close contacts or unmasked social interaction with other people," Williams said.

Most of the colleges that convened this fall, of course, have asked students to pledge to community compacts designed to encourage mask-wearing in public places, strict adherence to social distancing protocols and buy-in to avoiding parties that pack over-stuffed crowds into small spaces.

Results have been mixed.

The New York Times has been running a tracker of coronavirus on campus that, through Nov. 5, had recorded more than 250,000 cases across more than 1,700 schools. Penn State one of the largest universities in the nation has also had among the most COVID cases, with 4,328 as of last Thursday.

Despite those numbers, Paltiel told PennLive in a telephone interview last week that most schools that had robust intake programs for arriving students, and then stood up some kind of all-student testing protocols have generally seen things work out well.

Students whove been living on campuses where the colleges administrators have been doing any kind of reasonable job of regulating their behavior, perhaps testing them on some frequent, regular basis, ensuring that theyre maintaining social distancing; theyve been living a pretty good existence where theyre at pretty low risk for infection."

Not that its been a piece of cake for the students.

Keri McGill of Downingtown is a junior at the University of Miami.Provided photo

I wanted to make the most of the time I have in college and its been nice to be here with my roommates and close friends, but the constant stress of making sure everything you do isnt putting yourself or someone at risk takes a toll, said McGill, the Miami student.

This years been hard on everyone and we all want to be able to be with the people in our lives who help make that easier, but with so much at risk being back here can sometimes feel like more trouble than its worth.

Most of the schools reached for this report are moving to a remote instruction model for the rest of the fall semester, to reduce student travel back and forth that could exacerbate virus transmission.

If your family does have a student coming home, here are some steps our experts recommended to make sure the transition is as safe as possible.

If a student is lucky enough to attend a college where there has been routine screening, and if that college is wise enough to ask students to basically quarantine prior to departure, and (he or she) performed and received a negative test just in the 72 hours before they leave campus, and if that student is lucky enough to be traveling home in a private car... then, by all means, lets have Thanksgiving dinner with Granny, Paltiel said.

If your student isnt able to check all of those boxes, its probably time to think about postponing at least the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Johnson said the best thing for those students would be to self-isolate in the home for two weeks, and then join the family activities when its clearly safer.

But even if you can check those boxes, Pitts Williams said, changes have to be made to the traditional Norman Rockwell portrayal of the family Thanksgiving feast.

There is a middle ground (between a houseful and having no Thanksgiving at all) where one can significantly reduce risk, and that middle ground involves masks and distance," he said.

Offering a personal illustration, Williams noted his family has ditched their traditional extended family gathering of about 25. Still on the table, Williams said, is whether or not his elderly parents come.

But if my parents come, he added, the college and high school kids will be across the room and masked, from the grandparents.

Temples Johnson offered this parting thought.

Its really important to emphasize that this pandemic is worse than weve seen before in the country. Even if the holidays this year dont look as merry and bright as were used to, taking precautions to have what I call healthy holidays is so important to making sure that we can actually have everyone together for the following holidays, come 2021.

Read more from the original source:
Will college students add to the spread of COVID-19 as they head home for Thanksgiving? - PennLive