Students begin returning this week to college and university campuses across Vermont, and school officials hope all the rules that kept them safe during the fall semester will work again for the spring.
But problems at Norwich University are a sobering reminder of what can go wrong.
Norwich’s Covid-19 Reporting Dashboard reports 63 current coronavirus cases and a 2.1% test-positivity rate. Of the 2,218 students who’ve been tested, 150 are either in isolation or in quarantine — nearly 7% of the student body.
Norwich reported just 16 positive cases all of last semester.
There’s some good news, too: Confirmed cases of Covid-19 are down this week, both nationally and in Vermont, and vaccinations of Vermonters 75 and older began on Monday.
But the statewide seven-day average of virus case counts is nearly 20 times higher than it was last September, and health officials warn a new, more contagious strain could soon be the dominant form of the virus in the United States.
Aside from a few minor adjustments, colleges plan nearly the same approach as last semester.
“Not a lot has changed, but what we’ve really learned is that successfully implementing those [measures] really works to control the spread,” said Gary Derr, the University of Vermont’s vice president for operations and public safety.
A warning sign
The 63 cases developed at Norwich despite myriad mitigation efforts. Students were asked to quarantine before traveling and again upon their arrival on campus just over two weeks ago. Students also arrived on a staggered schedule over a four-day period to avoid crowding.
Norwich students were instructed to enter a modified room quarantine after receiving their “day zero” test upon arrival and to leave their rooms only to pick up food, said Daphne Larkin, director of media relations and community affairs.
But there’s evidence that not everyone on campus has been following these guidelines.
On Tuesday, Norwich confirmed a news tip about unsafe student gatherings on campus, in direct violation of the student behavior contract.
“There have already been students sent home due to their failure to adhere to the student behavior contract and comply with the rules,” Larkin said in an email. “We want students to know that we are taking their health and safety, and the well-being of our entire Norwich and central Vermont community, very seriously.”
Before the latest incident, Norwich has already removed four students for violating school policy on unsafe gatherings, Larkin said.
Rules of the game
It all starts with a quarantine.
In addition to mandatory mask-wearing and physical distancing, UVM is asking students returning to Burlington from outside Vermont to self-quarantine for 14 days, or seven days with a negative test.
And every UVM student, including those traveling within Vermont, has to receive a negative test before heading for the campus.
Champlain College, also in Burlington, adopted the same rule this semester, and both schools hope that will help prevent an uptick in community transmission when students return.
Schools in the Vermont State Colleges System — Castleton University, the Northern Vermont University campuses in Johnson and Lyndon, Vermont Technical College and the Community College of Vermont — must adhere to the Safe and Healthy Return to Campus document, which was updated in December to reflect the rising number of cases and to give schools flexibility on how to handle Vermont’s current ban on multi-household gatherings.
All students in the state college system are tested within 48 hours of arrival and again seven days later. Testing frequency is left to the schools, and — though traditional spring break periods are no more — administrators have worked in extra rest days to combat burnout and “pandemic fatigue.” In-person instruction can’t begin until Feb. 1, when school officials will have had the chance to identify positive cases on campus.
“The thing that we have going for us is we have practice limiting the spread of the infection,” said Richard W. Schneider, former Norwich University president and head of Vermont’s college reopenings task force. “So I think we have gotten smarter, and the students have gotten smarter, about really being careful with quarantining and isolating.
More cases expected
At Middlebury College, two employees tested positive last week and are recuperating in isolation, wrote Dr. Mark Peluso, director of health services and college physician, in a campuswide email on Wednesday, Jan. 20. The Vermont Department of Health has completed contact tracing and determined there were no workplace or campus exposures.
“With a higher prevalence of Covid-19 in our community and nationwide, we expect that as the winter term and spring semester progress, we will have additional positive cases,” Peluso wrote. Updated numbers are available on the college’s Covid-19 reporting dashboard.
For the moment, the majority of Middlebury students are completing a one-month January term remotely, with only about 50 students currently living on campus.
Middlebury’s requirements for the spring semester will closely resemble those from the fall, plus new guidelines issued by the state in December, Peluso said.
As at UVM, students returning to Middlebury face a mandatory two-week pre-arrival quarantine, tests on arrival day, then quarantine in their rooms until they have received a negative test result.
Students at Champlain and UVM will be tested every week once instruction resumes, and Derr said the isolation process has been refined for students who test positive for Covid. Last semester, UVM conducted 144,894 tests and returned 99 total positives. Middlebury College conducted over 11,200 tests and had five student cases during the semester.
Banking on ‘social capital’
Last fall’s reopening was shrouded in skepticism among students and community residents alike. They worried whether school guidelines would be enough to prevent serious outbreaks — or if students would follow the guidelines at all.
But Derr said the semester’s relative success, underscored by the extremely low percentage of cases, earned UVM and its students some “social capital.”
Much of the fall semester’s success hinged on students following the terms set out in various health pledges drawn up by the colleges. Students at UVM were required to sign the Green and Gold Promise; at Champlain, it was the Community Health Pledge.
A similar pledge at Middlebury, which all in-person students were required to sign last semester, covered safety requirements ranging from daily health screens and personal hygiene to contact tracing and physical distancing. Administrators barred 22 students from campus in September due to conduct violations.
These promises, and evidence of minimal transmission from Vermont campuses, seem to have placated public officials for now.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger said in a press conference on Friday, Jan. 22, that students at UVM and Champlain College “deserve our appreciation and praise” for their efforts in keeping their schools and their communities safe, but stressed that the recent surge in cases gives many within Burlington reason for pause.
“If we get to the point where we’re not comfortable that this containment of the virus is under control, I will be vocal about that,” Weinberger said.
Middlebury anticipates about 2,200 students will return for the spring semester, with all but about 100 living on campus, said Derek Doucet, dean of students. They’ll move in on Feb. 21 and 22.
“While we are prepared for positive cases, our experience from last fall shows that 2,000-plus students can travel and arrive safely during a nationwide surge,” Peluso said.
Peluso and his team are in frequent communication with UVM-Porter Medical Center and the Vermont Department of Health regarding how the college can support Covid-19 vaccination efforts, both for the campus and local community.
Still, “until vaccine doses are more widely available, mitigation measures will be emphasized as our best defense against Covid-19,” Peluso said.
