Students living in residence halls are required to move out between March 14 and Sunday due to COVID-19. Credit: Amal Saeed | Photo Editor
As they say, timing is everything, and one expert says Ohio State’s decision to suspend in-person classes and move students out of dorms might have happened at an ideal time.
Spring break provided the university with a convenient opportunity to transition students to online classes and out of residence halls, Drew Harris, a population health analyst at Thomas Jefferson University, said.
“Students are going to be leaving campus anyway,” Harris said. “They’re just saying, ‘Don’t come back.’”
In an email sent to the university community March 12, University President Michael V. Drake said Ohio State would suspend all in-person classes for the rest of the spring semester and extend spring break until Sunday. And in addition, students living in residence halls registered for time slots to move out between March 14 and Sunday.
Harris said precautions such as these at universities are designed to protect individuals at high risk of COVID-19-related illnesses.
“It’s important to remember that students, younger people, are not at high risk from serious complication related to the virus,” Harris said.
At the time of publication, there are 119 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ohio — two of which are members of the Ohio State community — according to the Ohio Department of Health website.
However, these spring break closures are not just affecting college students. Gov. Mike DeWine also announced March 12 that all K-12 school districts would begin an extended three-week spring break beginning March 16.
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“We understand the sacrifice this is going to entail but this is the best medical advice we could get from people who study viruses and we know it is the right thing to do,” DeWine said at a March 16 press conference.
Current requirements mandate even seemingly healthy individuals be quarantined if they test positive for the virus or come into contact with anyone testing positive, Harris said. These requirements playing out at a university would mean isolating large numbers of students.
“You can imagine in a dormitory situation, that means you shut down an entire dorm; then you have a whole dorm of students who are quarantined,” Harris said.
Harris said the nature of college campuses — students being clustered together — means closing campuses makes sense to prevent spread of the virus.
Ohio State is not the only university to take such actions. Harvard University asked students to move out of university housing by March 15 — the beginning of its spring break — and transitioned to exclusively virtual instruction until the end of the spring semester, according to the university’s website.
Students at Case Western Reserve University were told to move out of residence halls between March 13 and 17 — its spring break ended March 13 — and will be instructed online for the remainder of spring semester, according to the university’s website.
Ohio University extended their spring break by a week for students to move out of university housing between March 17 and Sunday, according to the university’s website. Their classes will resume Monday in an exclusively online format for the rest of spring semester.
Harris compared the situation to Philadelphia’s and St. Louis’ responses to the 1918 influenza outbreak.
Harris said St. Louis’ closure of public spaces and the institution of social distancing resulted in one-eighth the number of deaths of Philadelphia, which continued to hold its bond parade that attracted 300,000 people.
In the past week, DeWine ordered the closing of all Ohio restaurants, bars, fitness and recreation centers, bowling alleys, movie theaters, barbershops, salons, tattoo shops, most Bureau of Motor Vehicles offices, indoor water parks and indoor trampoline parks. Carry out and delivery are still available through restaurants.
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