Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Back To College After Thanksgiving? Not Without A Test, NC State Says
Students, faculty and staff at North Carolina State University will be required to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test before returning to campus in the spring. The school announced the new policy Friday, WNCN-TV reported. The decision comes after more than 1,000 cases forced the school to move mostly to remote classes during the fall semester. (11/15)
A new surge of coronavirus infections is sweeping the nation, just as San Diego colleges prepare to send students off for the Thanksgiving holiday. UC San Diego urged students to get tested before leaving to avoid unwittingly spreading the virus. After the holiday, UCSD and San Diego State University will begin testing many of its students weekly, rather than bi-weekly, for COVID-19 to help slow transmission. The schools were working out the details on Friday. (Robbins, 11/15)
Most major universities in Texas are shifting the rest of the fall semester online after Thanksgiving so students avoid traveling back and forth, limiting exposure of the virus. But few of those universities — some of which have been identified as coronavirus hot spots — have explicitly encouraged students to quarantine for 14 days before Thanksgiving or required exit testing, despite staggering rises in case counts across the state and country. (McGee, 11/16)
Sandy Kretschmer imagines her son Henry returning home from college, dropping his bags and then giving her a big hug. But she knows the reality of this homecoming may be a lot different. "I'll probably have a mask on, and he'll have a mask on when I hug him," she says. Henry plans to take a COVID-19 test a few days before he leaves Iowa State University where he's a junior, and he'll self-quarantine until he heads home to Chicago. (Nadworny and Noguchi, 11/14)
College students and their parents face a daunting challenge this Thanksgiving: How can students go home for the holiday without bringing the coronavirus with them? The logistics of Thanksgiving break in the midst of a pandemic are tough. College campuses have emerged as hotbeds of infection in some parts of the country, accounting for more than 252,000 infections and at least 80 deaths. While students are at relatively low risk for complications related to Covid-19, the worry is that an asymptomatic student could unknowingly bring the virus home to vulnerable family members. (Parker-Pope and Halpert, 11/13)
About 40 percent of U.S. residents say they plan to gather in groups of 10 or more people this holiday season, according to a recent survey from Ohio State University (OSU) Wexner Medical Center. Nearly 33 percent of respondents said they would not require friends or family to wear masks at Thanksgiving gatherings, and 25 percent said they would not practice social distancing, according to the poll. (Deese, 11/14)
In other higher-education news —
Tens of thousands of international students have paused their plans to enroll in U.S. colleges and universities this fall amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, threatening a key source of revenue for higher education, a new survey shows. The Institute of International Education reported Monday that international enrollment fell 16 percent this fall at more than 700 schools it surveyed. The flow of new international students into U.S. institutions plummeted 43 percent from the previous year. (Anderson, 11/16)
