Quinnipiac students will now be able to visit other dorm rooms — a sign of loosening COVID-19 restrictions on campus as the B117 variant of the virus now makes up a quarter of Connecticut’s infections.
“The sense is that things will continue to go well,” said Dr. David Hill, professor of medical sciences and director of the COVID-19 Task Force. “We haven’t seen any worrisome clusters despite the slight increase in cases this week.”
The COVID-19 positivity rate rose from 0.4% to 0.7% after testing on March 15 and March 17.
Many students agree with the change in policy, which was announced in an email to students on March 16.
“Most people still go and sit down with their friends to grab food, some even go off campus with people who do not reside in their residence halls,” said Hannah Eaton, sophomore occupational therapy major. “While I do think that staying in the residence halls worked with keeping cases down, I do not think that they could really catch many people that were doing it, therefore the rule did not do much.”
As for concerns about the new strain, students are hopeful these fears will dissipate when the vaccine becomes more available to the college-age group. Gov. Ned Lamont recently announced that all adults over 16 will be eligible for vaccination as of April 5.
Hill said that he and the other members of the COVID-19 Task Force hope to offer on-campus vaccination clinics at this time, eliminating the need to test immunized students.
“We would like to be able to offer the vaccine on campus so we are looking at the logistics and the feasibility of that so we could assure that students have at least one dose,” Hill said.
Many students are hopeful that the vaccine will keep cases at bay despite the mutations of the virus.
“The vaccines have proven effective against these strains so as long as everyone gets the vaccine there will be no issue,” said Caroline Miller, freshman nursing major.
Research from the University of Minnesota backs up Miller’s rationale, but only to a point. The study released in early February suggests that the Pfizer vaccine is likely to be effective against the B117 strain, depending on if it contains a certain mutation called E484k, which would potentially make the vaccine less effective.
“The California strain, the South African strain and the resilient strain — these are all of concern,” Hill said. “That is why we are not done with this pandemic.”
Concerns about the potential for an increased spread on campus with the relaxed visitation rules prior to widespread vaccination are low among students who point to Quinnipiac’s success with keeping cases down so far this semester.
“Quinnipiac has kept the positive cases down and has had strict rules,” said Alexis Keane, sophomore psychology and political science major. “I think it is well deserved and appreciated by students.”
Not all students are quite so confident, however. Emily Vail, freshman English major, said that while cases have gone down, the option to visit other residence halls could cause a resurgence if people are not careful.
“We shouldn’t relax restrictions until more people are vaccinated and we can achieve herd immunity,” Vail said.
In New Jersey, a regional high school switched to an all-virtual format of learning after a spike in cases reported on March 9. A school in Michigan delayed its return to in-person learning by a week after an uptick in infections.
Despite positive infection rate of less than 1% at Quinnipiac, Connecticut and the nation as a whole are still seeing large amounts of cases. Vaccinations are rolling out rapidly, but the positivity rate in Connecticut is stagnating around 2.8%. Therefore, some Yale experts are criticizing Lamont’s decision to reopen Connecticut.
Nonetheless, beginning March 19, capacity at restaurants, gyms, houses of worship and several other indoor spaces will return to 100%. Senior advertising major Joelle Gray disagrees with relaxing restrictions on campus and in the state.
“People are still dying every single day,” Gray said.