If colleges cannot begin a return to normal under current circumstances, our society will never be able to return to normal.
CMC Health Screening location (credit: CMC)
According to its own data, the Claremont McKenna College (CMC) community has a 98% vaccination rate. The current COVID-19 positivity rate on CMC’s campus stands at a whopping 0.0%. Los Angeles County has reported a similar phenomenon occurring on other college campuses across the region. For example, the University of California Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, and Occidental College all have vaccination rates well over 90% and positivity rates well below 0.5%.
Los Angeles County partially attributes the low positivity rates at colleges to compliance with its indoor mask mandate. But that is simply not the case. Although students have been complying with mask rules in classrooms, mask compliance in residence halls has been scant. Moreover, there is a location on campus where students are allowed to gather in droves without having to mask up: the dining hall.
Despite the lack of indoor masking, COVID-19 case rates have remained low at colleges. Indoor masking was effective early in the pandemic when vaccines were not available, but with high vaccination rates, indoor masking is an unnecessary and restrictive measure. The CMC student body has been faced with numerous waves of the common cold and strep throat. Despite the spread of other respiratory diseases, COVID-19 has not spread, which suggests that the low case rate is the result of vaccines and not masks.
Los Angeles County has also imposed restrictions on social gatherings. The lack of sanctioned social gatherings on college campuses has dulled campus energy and taken away spaces that allow students to experiment with their newfound independence. Such restrictions are also unnecessary: during the week following CMC’s first large-scale party, there were zero new cases.
Los Angeles County should provide COVID-19 regulatory exemptions for colleges with high vaccination rates and effective testing procedures. Introductory college economics courses teach students about cost-benefit analysis, the process of weighing the costs and benefits of a given decision. It is high time to recognize that the costs exacted by restrictive COVID-19 policies on college campuses outweigh any supposed benefits.
The Center for Disease Control reports that as of October 12th, out of more than 187 million fully-vaccinated people, 6,227 have died from a COVID-19 breakthrough infection, reflecting a less than 1 in 30,000 chance of death. Despite the tragedy of these deaths, we need to put these numbers in their proper statistical context. In 2020, out of roughly 330 million Americans, an estimated 38,680 people died from car accidents, reflecting a more than 1 in 9,000 chance of death. Out of roughly 180 million people who drink alcohol every year, there are about 95,000 alcohol-related deaths annually, reflecting a more than 1 in 2,000 chance of death.
The data indicate that dying in a car accident and dying from alcohol-related causes are 3 and 15 times more likely than dying from a breakthrough COVID-19 case. Nevertheless, Americans still make the decision every day to hit the road or crack open a cold one—sometimes together. Yet for some reason, the vaccinated are not allowed to shed their masks and resume normal activities, even in highly-vaccinated communities.
Furthermore, the risk of death or serious illness from a breakthrough infection is even lower for young and healthy college-aged students. Colleges are unique communities. You would be hard pressed to find any other place in the United States with such high vaccination rates among such a low-risk population. If colleges, where so many students are vaccinated and low-risk, cannot return to normal, society will never return to normal.
To be clear, colleges should not remove all COVID-19 mitigation protocols. Vaccination mandates have been the primary reason for low case rates at colleges. Beyond that, weekly testing has equipped colleges to monitor case rates and isolate infected students. Nevertheless, indoor masking requirements for vaccinated students and restrictions on gathering sizes are both unnecessary and dampen the social vibrancy of college life.
After all we have endured over the past 20 months, we must not become complacent with unnecessarily restrictive policies. If we do not relax rules when and where we can, Los Angeles County will never be able to enter a post-pandemic world. Colleges must be the start of the return to normalcy. It is time to return to life as we know it, and need it, on college campuses.
This article earned a third-place commendation in the Dreier Roundtable Op-Ed Contest.
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