Has anybody looked into how many of these positive college students are actually seriously sick? Probably somewhere close to zero.
Even if a student isn't seriously sick (mild symptoms or asymptomatic) they are still a carrier of the virus, and are capable of spreading it to others. An individual student, 18-23 years old, may not face serious risks from Covid, but them contracting the disease makes them a potential spreader. Throw in that college dorms, apartments, and greek houses are higher density than a typical household, that makes student housing on large university campuses particularly dangerous breeding grounds for a virus such as Covid.
Additionally, college students are not a completely isolated population. They still interact with the community around the campus and that creates more vectors for the infection to reach more at-risk individuals. If you also consider that college aged students aren't widely regarded for their personal accountability that makes the chance of spread within and beyond the student body that much more likely.
Bringing the students back to campus is a
public health risk, not just an individual risk. Iowa State's administration has put the greater population of Ames, Story County, and Iowa at huge amount of risk by restarting in-person classes.
And while it may be easy to say that the students won't get "actually seriously sick", that is ignoring consequences of what happens when the virus moves beyond the campus population, and starts effecting high risk groups.
www.thegazette.com
www.livescience.com
