Are college campuses superspreaders? A data-driven modeling study

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to present enormous challenges for colleges and universities and strategies for save reopening remain a topic of ongoing debate. Many institutions that reopened cautiously in the fall experienced a massive wave of infections and colleges were soon declared as the new hotspots of the pandemic. However, the precise effects of college outbreaks on their immediate neighborhood remain largely unknown. Here we show that the first two weeks of instruction present a high-risk period for campus outbreaks and that these outbreaks tend to spread into the neighboring communities. By integrating a classical mathematical epidemiology model and Bayesian learning, we learned the dynamic reproduction number for 30 colleges from their daily case reports. Of these 30 institutions, 14 displayed a spike of infections within the first two weeks of class, with peak seven-day incidences well above 1,000 per 100,000, an order of magnitude larger than the nationwide peaks of 70 and 150 during the first and second waves of the pandemic. While most colleges were able to rapidly reduce the number of new infections, many failed to control the spread of the virus beyond their own campus: Within only two weeks, 17 campus outbreaks translated directly into peaks of infection within their home counties. These findings suggests that college campuses are at risk to develop an extreme incidence of COVID-19 and become superspreaders for neighboring communities. We anticipate that tight test-trace-quarantine strategies, flexible transition to online instruction, and-most importantly-compliance with local regulations will be critical to ensure a safe campus reopening after the winter break.

COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance among College Students: A Theory-Based Analysis

“…Furthermore, a comparison of mean scores between the two groups yielded a significant difference for the hesitant group when compared to those who were non-hesitant. The low levels of belief in the advantages of the COVID-19 vaccine in the hesitant group point to the need for health promotion programming to convince this group of the advantages of vaccination not only for their benefit but also the greater benefits to society [14].…”

“…College students are vulnerable to SARS-Cov-2 infection due to a multitude of factors: communal residency in on-campus and off-campus housing, the reopening of college campuses and activities, and the necessity to travel between their home and campus. Furthermore, college campuses have been identified as at risk to develop cases of COVID-19 and have the potential to become "superspreaders" with likely impacts on neighboring communities [14]. Research among college students in Italy regarding COVID-19 vaccine intention shows that certain student sub-groups may have greater vaccination intention, including medical students, students with previous uptake of flu vaccination, students with a higher level of concern about COVID-19, and students with high vulnerability to COVID-19 [15].…”

COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance, Hesitancy, and Resistancy among University Students in France

“…The Centers for Disease Control and the French Prevention and the National Authority for Health [4] have prioritized people at a high risk of acquiring the infection or transmitting the disease, or those with pre-existing medical conditions, and seniors [5]. Young adults, specifically college students, are at risk of being infected with COVID-19 and transmitting the infection to others owing to their sense of invulnerability, and can be a source of transmission to at-risk populations [6][7][8][9] and could be superspreaders [10]. The public acceptance of a new vaccine for COVID-19 developed within a short period remains uncertain despite the forthcoming availability.…”

Control of COVID-19 transmission on an urban university campus during a second wave of the pandemic

“…This finding is in direct contrast to recently published research suggesting that BU cases led the surrounding area in a causal manner. 20 There were several limitations to the latter study including the selection criteria for inclusion of universities that resulted in only one Boston-area institution of higher education in the analysis and assuming that transmission in the community arose from the university campus rather than the converse, which did not account for evidence from the BU contact tracing efforts, as described above, that suggested 55.7% of the transmission was exogenous (i.e. arising in the community).…”

“…This finding contradicts recently published research suggesting that BU cases led the surrounding area in a causal manner. 20 Limitations to the latter study include the inclusion criteria resulting in only one Boston-area institution in the analysis and assuming that community transmission arose from the university campus rather than the converse.…”