After a semester battling the coronavirus, often unsuccessfully, college leaders have one final plea for students heading home for Thanksgiving: Get tested, please.
What’s unclear: whether the plea will work.
High-profile failures already have marred dozens of colleges’ attempts to hold the fall semester of college in person.
Some institutions brought students back to campuses, only to pivot to digital instruction a week into classes, as unsanctioned parties drove up COVID-19 cases.
By mid-September, counties with a significant population of college students were fueling the nation’s worst coronavirus outbreaks.
As those outbreaks continued, state and local governments cracked down, ordering students quarantined to campus, like at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, or asking colleges to send students home, like at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Now, with the Thanksgiving holiday a week away and cases hitting record highs nationally, those college students are preparing to fan out across the country, taking their possible coronavirus infections – symptomatic or not – into their loved ones’ homes.
Colleges are scrambling to prevent the resulting spread of the virus. Some institutions have urged or even required students to quarantine or receive a negative coronavirus test before traveling home. Without those precautions, college leaders say, students should consider abstaining from their holiday plans and instead opt for a celebration closer to campus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday chimed in, calling out college students in its advisory against traveling during the Thanksgiving period.
The safest way to celebrate the holiday is “at home with the people you live with,” the CDC said. “People who do not currently live in your housing unit, such as college students who are returning home from school for the holidays, should be considered part of different households.”
The agency stopped short of saying college students shouldn’t celebrate with their families, but did say events that included them would be riskier.
-Yahoo! News
