Covid Chronicles. Chapter 73: Back to School Becomes a Covid Fest

Read chapter 72 here

Monday, September 14, 2020     

As you can see from the column graph, the number of new Covid cases in Wisconsin spiked during the past week. In fact, we hit 1000 new cases on four consecutive days. 

How did we find ourselves in this situation? 

Well, guess what happened during the past few weeks? 

Thousands of students returned to the UW-Madison campus for the fall semester, a hybrid of in-person and online classes. At least that was the administration’s plan. The parties and other large gatherings — no masks, no social distancing — started immediately. On September 5, the following headline appeared on the front page of the Wisconsin State Journal. 

 Of the 420 members of these chapters, 38 tested positive. The houses’ communal style of living – shared bathrooms and dining areas – created a petri dish for Covid transmission. Left unanswered is who is going to ensure that students living in off-campus, privately owned residences keep themselves in quarantine for the required 14 days. 

The spread of cases wasn’t limited to fraternity and sorority houses. Four days later, UW administrators dropped their hybrid plan for reopening the campus, as reported by the Capital Times. 

 The two 1960s-era, high-rise dorms – Sellery in the foreground and Witte in the background – are shown in the picture-postcard view. Together, they house about 2,300 students, mostly freshmen. That’s pre-Covid, of course. Witte was recently remodeled to give the facility a more communal atmosphere as a way to compete against the many private student residences that now tower along the southern edge of the campus. UW announced a 14-day quarantine of these two dorms after a ‘high number’ of residents tested positive. Students had about two hours to prepare for a quarantine – or decide that they were going to pack up and go home. 

The virus numbers continued to spike. On Friday September 11, Public Health of Madison and Dane County announced a record-breaking daily caseload of 456*, nearly 30% of the state’s daily tally. UW-Madison students were linked to more than 80% of the 456 cases. The following day, the UW administration added 13 more fraternities and sororities to the quarantine list. 

(*By the way, 40 Wisconsin counties have yet to report 456 Covid cases since the pandemic started.) 

Other UW System colleges encountered similar setbacks with their reopening plans. On Sept. 11, UW-La Crosse announced that 105 of 279 tests administered in a single day were positive. 37%! Nearly 400 students were quarantined in a single dorm. The situation became so bad that the chancellor announced a two-week quarantine for the entire campus. Our neighbors Dave and Karen have a granddaughter who started her freshman year at La Crosse, and she was very much looking forward to starting her college experience. Reluctantly, and greatly disappointed at the turn of events, she decided to spend the quarantine period at home rather than remain in her dorm. 

During the past week, I have read dozens of reports of Covid outbreaks on campuses all over the U.S. – public and private. (The map from the New York Times should the impact of COVID at Penn State relative to the rest of PA. It appears that college administrators donned rose-colored glasses during their planning process, eager to return to normal and keep the revenue flowing. As an article in the Wisconsin State Journal noted: 

Critics have said UW-Madison’s decision to offer in-person classes, at least for the first few weeks of the semester, was tied to securing students’ tuition money. 

Last Friday was the deadline to qualify for a 100% tuition refund. 

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank remains adamant in the face of criticism, saying she’d made the same decision again. 

The best zinger I’ve encountered came from the editorial staff of The Daily Cardinal, a campus newspaper. 

“If the plan, as it seems to have been, was dependent on the collective restraint of the entire student body, then it wasn’t a plan — it was wishful thinking.” 

Just minutes ago, the Janesville (WI) School District announced that 2 of its 19 schools, will be closed at least through September 25th due to positive Covid tests, 6 at Craig, one of its 2 high schools, and 3 at an unnamed elementary school. Why do supposedly educated people still think it’s possible to keep the virus at bay?