Universities across the country are taking more and more aggressive steps to prevent the spread of COVID.
The moves come as positive cases on university campuses have increased, though false positives remain an issue and some reports show that the number of COVID related hospitalizations at many major institutions remains at 0.
Author and doctor Andrew Bostom took to Twitter to list 29 colleges he said had no hospitalizations.
Reassuring C19 on Campus Update, re: students return/beginning since August: ZERO reported C19 hospitalizations among ~26,000 “C19+” students on 29 campuses. Table with refs following. pic.twitter.com/JJMI7dxVaH
— Andrew Bostom (@andrewbostom) September 8, 2020
Even with hospitalizations reported at 0, Ohio State University has suspended hundreds of students for attending parties, required students to take a pledge to follow the school’s COVID guidelines, and threatened to close on-campus learning should they be unable to control the spread of the disease.
Out west, the University of Arizona (UA) has hired a private security company to enforce COVID restrictions on the school’s campus.
“On campus, we have two major initiatives, first we are hiring monitors from a private security company to patrol and ensure compliance of health and safety directives,” UA President Robert C. Robbins said in a briefing.
In the south, several University of Georgia students have been quarantined, and the school has as many as 500 rooms prepared as quarantine locations, The Red and Black, the university’s news website reported. The school has also set up a “surveillance testing” program, which will “sample randomly” from both on and off-campus students and employees. It is not clear if that testing is mandatory, or what would happen if a student refused to be tested.
At the University of Wisconsin (UW), Rebecca Blank, the school’s chancellor, posted a video to YouTube directing students to “severely limit their in-person interactions,” and to leave their residence halls “only for essential activities” such as class, meals, or work. In an open letter, Blank said if “infections don’t fall, we will need to make more difficult decisions that significantly reduce our ability to have campus open to students.”
UW has reportedly seen 872 positive cases.
However, one issue that remains is the prevalence of false positives. A Boston based firm has been shut down after 383 false positives were uncovered, ABC affiliate WCVB reported.
At the UA, several students received what appear to be false positives KGUN said and will be retested.
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Ben Kolodny is a reporter at The Ohio Star and the Star News Network. You can follow Ben on Twitter. Tips can be sent to [email protected].
