WEDNESDAY, Jan 13, 2021 (HealthDay News) – U.S. colleges could be COVID-19 superspreader sites, and the first two weeks of classes are the most dangerous, researchers warn.
They examined 30 locations nationwide with the highest number of reported coronavirus cases and found that more than half had peaks within the first two weeks of class that were well over 1,000 cases per 100,000 people per week.
At some locations, one in five students was infected with the virus by the end of the fall semester. Four of the schools had more than 5,000 cases.
At 17 locations, computer modeling showed college outbreaks were also directly linked to spikes in infections in the counties where the schools were located.
Fortunately, the researchers also found that strict management of outbreaks – like switching instantly from face-to-face to online learning – can lower peak infection rates in about two weeks.
The study was published on January 13 in the journal Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering.
Compared to peak frequencies of 70 to 150 per 100,000 people per week in the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of 1,000 cases per 100,000 people per week found in the study shows that universities are at high risk of extreme stress are high infection rates, said lead author Hannah Lu of Stanford University’s Energy Resources Engineering program.
“Policymakers often use an incidence of 50 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people per week as the threshold for high-risk groups, states or countries. All 30 institutes in our study exceeded this value, three by two orders of magnitude.” Lu said in a press release.
“The number of college students who became infected during the fall is more than double the national average since the outbreak began of 5.3%. 17.3 million cases were reported out of a population of 328.2 million “, she stated.
For example, all 12,607 students at Notre Dame University were tested before class began and only nine tested positive. Less than two weeks after the start of the term, the incidence after seven days was 3,083.
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