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The COVID pandemic has complicated college application season, as families try to guess where their students will be safe in 2021. And unless they choose a campus their students can easily commute to, they also need to decide if their students will be living on or off-campus.
Making dorms safer during the pandemic
Colleges around the country prepared for the resumption of classes this fall with a number of measures that were meant to ensure proper sanitation and social distancing. For many colleges and universities, that meant following CDC guidelines for rigorous COVID testing and contact tracing, masking, hybrid classroom situations that alternate between in-person and online labs and lectures, banning large gatherings, and limiting the population of students living in dormitories.
Kimberly Kauer’s daughter is a freshman living on campus at Vanderbilt University. Kimberly told Mom.com that she’s been impressed with Vandebilt’s safety measures. “It's a conservative program, which ruffled some feathers as being too restrictive, but it's kept their numbers low and the school community safer as a result,” she said.
Kimberly reports that the COVID restrictions make it harder for students to connect. “You can't casually chat up the person sitting next to you in class because if you are lucky enough to have an in-person class, the next seat is at least six feet away. Gyms are closed, too, taking away an easy physical outlet and social bonding space for students,” she said.
And as COVID numbers continue to rise, even the best college safety plans can change, as Martin Bruinsma of Los Angeles learned this fall.
“My girl was ready to go,” he told Mom.com. “She chose to study film at DePaul University in Chicago, Upon her arrival in Illinois- which was taking the COVID epidemic very seriously — she would be required to go immediately to her dorm room and quarantine for two weeks. A very tight quarantine. Food would be brought to her. She was prepared for complete isolation.”
Two days before his daughter’s scheduled flight to Chicago, they got word from the university that COVID had spiked, and that all on-campus housing had been cancelled.
“All of her classes are online. She feels incredibly isolated and alone. One class never meets — just posted reading and essay assignments. She seems to be doing well academically from what I can gather, but the blossoming of her journey into independence and adulthood has been suffocated,” he said.
College dorm safety versus off-campus housing
"College life is social life, so people are interacting with each other in a confined space," Dr. Rachael Piltch-Loeb, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told Elite Daily back at the start of the pandemic.
"Dorms are not the most hygienic places. You have shared bathrooms, you have shared sinks and washrooms and all that stuff, so simply put germs circulate in college environments, based on the proximity of people and the proximity of their respiratory droplets, which is the primary vehicle [by which] coronavirus is spread," she said.
That said, your student is probably safest living in on-campus student housing as that’s subject to the most stringent COVID policies. Unfortunately, the nation’s colleges and universities have no control over what students do when they’re OFF campus — and that has been blamed for some of the increase in COVID cases in the nation’s college communities.
“I think it’s inevitable that colleges are risky environments,” UC San Francisco Epidemiology and Biostatistics Chair Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo told the Los Angeles Times.
“One of the essential elements of college in general is that you have a bunch of people who have not been with each other, traveling and coming together in one location, living in an environment in close quarters and generally having an experience where interacting with one another is an essential feature,” she said.
COVID checklist for college dorms
In the before times, parents could count on receiving a lengthy checklist of items their students would need when they move into their dorm: extra-long twin bedding, lamps for bedside and desks, laundry baskets, and storage solutions will still be prominent on those lists for 2021. But the requirements for supplies during COVID will likely be expanded.
Cleaning supplies
Hand soap, hand sanitizer, and disinfectant wipes and cleaners for bathroom surfaces will all take on added importance.
First Aid Kit
Your student’s first aid kit should have these additional items during COVID: a thermometer (preferably one with disposable probe covers, or one of those fancy infrared models), a pulse oximeter, OTC medications (for cold, fever and flu) and supplements to boost their immune system (i.e., vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc).
Cloth and disposable masks
Masks have proven to be the most cost-effective measure to prevent COVID transmission, and it’s likely that they will continue to be required on campuses and in classrooms next year. Cloth masks should be washed after wearing, so it’s a good idea to have enough to last your student between laundry days. It may also make sense to have a supply of disposable paper masks in case they run out before they do the laundry. Send along a few bandanas and hair ties, so they can make this quick no-sew mask on the fly.
Fans and air purifiers
An electric fan may already be on your student’s dorm checklist. You may wish to invest in an air purifier with a HEPA filter to clean out the air in the room. Both of these — along with keeping windows open as much as possible — will ensure good air circulation. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) points to increased ventilation with outdoor air and air filtration devices as ways to potentially reduce the chances of airborne transmission of the COVID-19 virus.
