California colleges tried to prepare for COVID-19 outbreaks. It didn't work.
. Classes were put online, isolation rooms were set up on campus, and restrictions were placed on the number of students permitted to live in dormitories or come on campus.
With so many students living in close quarters and often pressing ahead with parties and other gatherings that disregard social distancing guidelines, some experts said school officials’ hopes of keeping the virus at bay with remote learning were unrealistic.“I think it’s inevitable that colleges are risky environments,” said Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, chair of UC San Francisco’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
Fewer than 2,500 students at San Diego State University were allowed to live in on-campus dorms and only about 6,240 students are taking in-person classes — slivers of the 35,485 students enrolled at the school.
“It’s such a wild card for us — it’s a wild card for any college town,” Debra Larson, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Chico State, said of the thousands of students living off campus. “You can tell them, ‘Don’t come,’ of course. But they were coming.” About 3,000 students have been tested weekly for the virus, and the university has a team of about 30 contact tracers working to identify close contacts of those who test positive.
Those numbers reflect a harsh reality for universities and colleges that outbreaks among college students may be nearly impossible to prevent. And while some schools elsewhere in the U.S. have opted to avoid the risk of outbreaks by remaining closed altogether and others have opened fully, in California schools have tried to strike a balance between opening and mitigating the risk posed by the virus.
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