Philosopher Gregory Pence (Alabama/Birmingham) kindly shared this list of universities with the biggest outbreaks of COVID on campus. What they have in common is that they are all large, mostly state schools, most of which have big fraternity/sorority scenes. (One surprise on the list is BYU, which is large, but is an alcohol-free campus, which one would have expected to contribute to more sensible behavior by students.) But these schools are the outliers, as even the NYT data reveals, despite their best journalistic effort to emphasize the negative:
More than 35,000 cases [COVID] cases have been identified since early October.
Though some colleges moved all their fall classes online, many campuses remained open even as positive tests accumulated by the hundreds or thousands. Of more than 1,700 institutions surveyed by The Times, more than 50 reported at least 1,000 cases over the course of the pandemic. More than 375 colleges have reported at least 100 cases.
Translated into non-hysterical English: 3% of universities account for about a third of all the cases on campuses, and one-quarter of the schools account for almost all the cases–meaning about 70% of colleges and universities are doing quite well. Considering that COVID is spreading out of control in huge parts of the country, colleges are performing admirably overall.
Leave a Reply