Colleges Are Making the Coronavirus Crisis Worse

Across the U.S., the reopening of college campuses is fast becoming a new public-health crisis. The arrival of students for the start of the fall semester has caused Covid-19 infections to spike in college towns from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to Chico, California. Of counties where college students are at least 10% of the population, half have seen Covid cases hit their highest-ever levels in the past month.

Given lack of guidance from federal and state officials and the inadequacy of the U.S.’s testing system, mounting infections among college students were all too likely. College administrators failed to anticipate the scale of the outbreaks or develop plans for containing them. To protect students, faculty and residents of surrounding communities, colleges now need to curtail student activities and move classes online.