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Today, there are about 56.6 million primary and secondary school students in the United States, and about 20 million students are enrolled in colleges and universities. As the fall semester begins, they all stand at a precipice. We share the conviction of many educators, parents and public health experts that education must not be allowed to fall apart during the pandemic. But hopes are fast colliding with reality. Outbreaks at several universities suggest that schools everywhere must use extreme caution before going ahead with in-classroom schooling. The experience of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is instructive. The university, with nearly 30,000 students, started classes Aug. 10. (8/19)

Kevin Guskiewicz, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, appeared on the CBS news show “60 Minutes” in June to discuss the university’s plan to bring thousands of undergraduates back to campus amid a pandemic. “There certainly is some risk,” he said, “but we believe we’re putting in place the right measures to mitigate that risk.” It was a plan as ambitious as it was naive. Only a week into the start of the school year, Guskiewicz – confronted with clusters of coronavirus infections in student residence halls and a rising mutiny among faculty – on Monday announced that most students living on campus would be sent home and the rest of the fall semester would be conducted with remote instruction. The chancellor is the face of the decision, but it was the UNC Board of Governors that is to blame for the turmoil caused by the abrupt reversal. (8/18)

That students arrived in Chapel Hill with a less-than-perfect understanding of the world-as-it-is says something and it’s disheartening to ponder what that “something” might be. Maybe they all took a six-month trip to another planet, is that possible? Students, faculty and administrators fail to acquire “situational awareness” at great peril. The business model for all these colleges and universities is grounded in the word, “residential.” You can temporarily make it work otherwise, but you must account for an on-line half-life. (8/19)

It looks to me like parallel universes exist among ISU students. Up on campus, we have people in masks, people keeping their distance from each other, people all concerned about the virus. But as soon as they get off campus, down on Welch, on a warm day … watch out. All that teaching and those warnings are for naught. (Dick Haws, 8/18)

Long before the pandemic came along, the nation, especially Appalachia, was in the throes of a deadly epidemic: opioid and meth addiction. It was a crisis that tore apart families, devastated communities and destroyed lives. As the pandemic continues, so does the opioid epidemic, with the pandemic's widespread effects causing opioid addiction to escalate at alarming numbers. The Overdose Data Mapping Application Program report published in May showed fatal overdoses rose by almost 11.4% from January to April, compared with the same period last year. In July, the American Medical Association warned about an increase of reports from across the country showing a dramatic increase in opioid-related mortality during the pandemic. (Salena Zito, 8/19)

It was heartening to learn that rapper and now presidential candidate Kanye West suffers from bipolar disorder because finally there was a way to explain his behavior.At the same time, I was saddened for him, for his family. Coping with mental illness can be hard for a lot of reasons. There’s always the nagging question of why me? The fear of what it means. And the biggie ― the unwarranted shame one may feel. (Gracie Bonds Staples, 8/20)

You can’t spend time on the streets of any large city in California and not ask this question: Why do so many of our most vulnerable, severely mentally ill Californians not get the care they so urgently need? We hoped this critically important public policy question, and others, would be answered when we asked California’s state auditor last year to closely examine the laws governing involuntary treatment of those with a serious mental illness. Jonathan Sherin and Darrell Steinberg, 8/20)

Depending on where you live, you might be seeing masked joggers and cyclists on the streets of your neighborhood. Or you might have gone for a run yourself, mask-free, and been heckled to mask up. At this point, most thoughtful people wear masks indoors in public and outdoors in crowded situations, but wearing a mask when you’re outdoors and alone — or far away from anyone else — has become a frontier of intense debate.Presidential candidate Joe Biden added to the confusion when he called for a national mask mandate last week. In no uncertain terms, he said it could save 40,000 lives over the next three months if everyone wore a mask “outside.” But that’s not what the experts say. (Faye Flam, 8/19)