How are Illinois Universities Handling COVID-19?
By Brittany Benson and Julia Kindelin
University of Illinois schools began the fall semester while the state was in Phase 4, which allowed them to open for in-person classes if desired. All three schools In the UI system The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and The University of Illinois at Springfield reopened this past fall using a hybrid approach.
As campuses reopened and began adjusting to the new normal, each school fought their own battle with the virus. UIC and Springfield, the smaller universities, have had different approaches from their larger counterparts.
UIC and Springfield chose not to adopt Champagnes biweekly testing system. Instead, both schools test students and staff in campus housing, some students and faculty/staff in performing arts, Student-athletes, and athletics staff once a week. Additionally, UIS requires any individual learning or working on campus to test any day they come to campus, at least once per week.
Since Aug. 17th, UIC has conducted over 45,000 tests. 0.012% of those have come back positive.
Earlier this fall, according to the UIC COVID-19 dashboard, UIC higher test positivity rate, noted to their students in a press release posted on Oct. 30th. Prior to that week, UIC’s saliva testing positivity rate was below 1%. The release does not note the source of the higher cases, but urges students and faculty to vigitanly adhere to the rules and regulations campus imposes.
The UIC Contact Tracing and Epidemiology Program is responsible for alerting those who test positive within 24–48 hours to obtain a list of close contacts. Contacts who had significant exposure to the positive individual will be asked to quarantine. UIC has designated 140 quarantine rooms around campus for positive cases. They have maintained a relatively low occupancy rate, and had 94.3% of their rooms available as of Nov. 22.
Champagne was praised nationally for their aggressive COVID response plan which included a biweekly covid testing requirement. All undergraduate students, graduate students, staff, and faculty who are living, working, or taking classes on campus were required to submit to testing.
On Aug. 30th the UIUC COVID-19 dashboard indicated that UIUC experienced a 2.86% positivity rate, their highest of the semester. On Aug. 31st, they had 230 new cases, also their highest during the semester. Over the course of the fall, they have successfully lowered their numbers through mitigation strategies such as increased testing.
The University of Illinois Chancellor noted in a September Q and A that the increase of cases early in the semester is due to large parties, students breaking isolation/quarantine, and ignoring calls from the public health department. In efforts to encourage students to listen to the rules Champagne will suspend students who refuse to comply with isolation or quarantine.
In their Nov. 11th post of the COVID-19 Briefing Series, a board of UIUC affiliated panelists reflected on the changes made over the fall semester, noting that once data highlighted that most of the cases on campus were from undergraduate students, testing for some undergraduates was increased to three times per week. Testing for faculty and staff was reduced to once a week.
Nigel Goldenfeld, Professor of Physics at Champagne, noted that the university could have done a better job of isolating positive cases in a timely manner. In efforts to respond to this issue faced earlier in the semester Champagne launched SHIELD Team 30, a task force created to identify and contact positive cases.
“What we know from modeling and what we saw in real life was that it takes about four weeks after a big spike in cases for the numbers to go down,” Goldenfield said, “We found clearly that SHIELD contains the epidemic and after four weeks from the end of the essential activities, our seven-day positivity was about 0.12% and we were getting case numbers in single digits, which is a remarkable achievement for a university community of this size”
In that same briefing, Rebecca Smith, Associate Professor or Pathobiology at Champagne noted the Universities data oriented approach as well as how they plan to continue to make changes as the year progresses.
“We had a great plan to begin with, but the main reason we make changes is because we liste,” Smith said. “We are listening to the data first. There are multiple teams of people analyzing the data on a daily basis, as soon as it comes down, multiple teams will look through the data, look for patterns, look for new concerns. We’re always watching to see if we can find something new that we can do to improve our control. We’re also listening to people, we’re listening to experts. The experts in Champaign-Urbana Public Health District and in other public health districts. We listen to our colleagues in the other universities to hear what they’re doing and what’s working for them. And we listen to our faculty and our staff and our students.” Smith said.
Sangamon County, home to Springfield experienced a small growth in cases on the week of September 6th, shortly after the start of the semester. After a brief drop, cases shot back up peaking at 841 per 100,000 on Nov. 15.
Springfield itself has not reported any significant peak in cases, and has abided by their Prairie Plan to mitigate the spread on campus. The plan outlines health and wellness behavior expectations, testing and contact tracing strategies, quarantine and isolation procedures, and all other changes to campus life.
Additionally, UIS’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Team is responsible for identifying, isolating, and mitigating the spread on campus. The team comprises 16 members, most notably Karen Whitney, Interim Chancelor of UIS.
Springfield has conducted 23,843 saliva tests as of Monday November 30th, with their most recent 7-day positivity rate being 1.12%.
After Wednesday, Nov. 25th, all classes will be conducted online. To help students with the transition, UIS created a webpage that offers students support resources and software access links.
UIUC freshman Jason Turkula said, “Everyone has to get tested two times a week and we have an app that shows our results that you need in order to get into most buildings. If your dorm was high risk and you hadn’t had COVID-19 yet you would then have to get tested 3 times a week.”
“All my classes have been online so it’s been difficult to meet new people besides my roommates. Luckily recreational facilities are open so I have been using that to fill my time up and just get some social interaction out of my day since this isn’t considered to be a typical college year and there is nothing to do.” he continues to say, “Honestly students don’t care about COVID-19 as much as they should.” Turkula said.
Living on campus seems to be similar to living off campus this 2020 Fall semester being that UIC senior Derek Elkins had all of his classes entirely online as well.
“Most of my social life is based around campus because I do live alone,” Elkins said. “So having online classes isn’t my ideal format for school as I miss my friends and getting together with class groups for in person meetings. Since online classes have taken place, it has ruined a lot of my motivation to attend class. A lot of online classes are self motivated making it more difficult.”
As graduations approach and cases continue to rise, signs of an in person ceremony aren’t promising. This leaves many senior students like Derek Elkins wondering if they will have a chance to celebrate with family, friends and classmates.
“Even though I am graduating, I have many classmates that are going on to spring semester hoping to be in person. From the looks of it, UIC will stay mostly online. I dont think it’s fair that we are still paying practically full price for the Fall semester. A lot of us haven’t even been to campus since early spring of 2020 meaning we are not using campus buildings or recreational facilities. So why are we still paying for it?” said Elkins.
Plans may change during winter break when considering financials as well as figuring out if it is safe for students to attend school in person. As it is frustrating for students, it is apparent that cases are still rising as the school year approaches spring semester and plans still are changing rapidly.
On Nov. 13th Illinois hit a new single day record of COVID cases after 15,415 tests came back positive. Over the past 7 days, Illinois has seen a 13.6% increase in cases; resulting in Illinois becoming one of 11 states whose daily cases are over 5,000 per day.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reports that 20–29 year olds have the highest test positivity rate of all age groups in Illinois, which is representative of the average age of college students in Illinois.
All UI schools have transitioned to fully online classes to finish the semester as of Monday, Nov. 30th leaving students questioning spring semester plans.
