BY FRANK E. RITTER AND DONALD A. DONAHUE

We will need to continue to protect ourselves from COVID-19, probably through spring 2022. Colleges and universities have long been recognized as places of increased risk for communicable diseases. While higher education has benefited from immunization mandates against “childhood diseases” in primary and secondary schools, they have also acted affirmatively against threats that have arisen on higher ed campuses, such as requiring vaccination against Neisseria meningitidis.

The response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been as varied as the institutions facing it, influenced by public health considerations, politics, and—in some venues—the resumption of lucrative, big-time college sports. Countermeasures have included mandatory vaccination, mask policies, testing, contact tracing, and reliance on the fact that young adults are less prone to severe COVID-19. Some institutions are progressing as if the pandemic were inconsequential.

The issue for faculty is that we are older than our students, may have underlying health issues, and risk exposure both on and off campus. While the epidemic curve had been trending downward overall, late November has seen an increase and the daily death toll continues to be significant, with 1,948 people perishing on Veterans Day (November 11) and the cumulative national toll topping three-quarters of a million deaths. Vaccination has helped enormously, but long-haul COVID-19 cases still occur among the vaccinated and unvaccinated, inflicting lifelong cognitive, neurological, cardiological, and pulmonary complications. If this pandemic, even at the current level, were caused by any other disease (for example, polio, measles, or rheumatic fever), the country would respond vigorously to combat it.

For faculty, prudence suggests continuing to follow CDC-recommended guidelines for protecting yourself and others on college campuses. Many hospitals are near or over capacity because of COVID-19 cases, and campuses provide a location and cause for the disease to spread.

The risks of being in a classroom are not fully known and are difficult to assess given the wide variety of classroom spaces, even on the same campus. The CDC and the Department of Education both suggest that mitigation measures be in place, including vaccination, masking, physical distancing, testing, and contact tracing (not always done). There are, however, simple foundational practices to help protect yourself, your students, families, and others, irrespective of your institution’s policies and practices.

Evidence-based guidelines can help protect faculty:

(1) Be vaccinated and updated as suggested by your healthcare provider.

(2) Encourage people with whom you interact to be vaccinated; encourage your university to require it.

(3) Be masked inside when you will be in contact with people for more than fifteen minutes over the course of a day (exposure is cumulative).

(4) Require the folks you interact with to be properly masked as well.

(5) Choose better, easy-to-wear masks (for example, N95 or KN95) when possible, and work more carefully in higher-risk areas.

(6) Maintain six feet or more physical distance from others, particularly if they may be unvaccinated, may be infected but asymptomatic, or are visibly coughing or sneezing.

(7) Provide office hours on Zoom.

(8) If you fear you have been exposed, quarantine and teach remotely as allowed by your institution. If you are sick, isolate and do what you can.

(9) Pay attention to ventilation: open windows, insist on better ventilation, and teach in larger rooms with more space between occupants or outside, whenever possible.

(10) Assist with contact tracing in your classes, which is an important process. Seating charts or daily pictures help.

(11) Encourage your university to increase its symptomatic and asymptomatic testing to levels recommended by the US Department of Education.

(12) Encourage your university to share more information, including detailed numbers about ventilation, infection rates, and contact tracing to help judge and adjust risk.

Your health-care provider will be able to provide the greatest accuracy of your risk based on your personal situation. This information may be available to you by phone, but medical offices are relatively safe. If you believe you may have been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus or have COVID-19 symptoms, contact the office prior to going there.

The Basis of These Recommendations

The WHO and CDC advises that you have a strong chance of catching COVID-19 in an unventilated or poorly ventilated space if you have been within six feet of an infected, unmasked person for fifteen minutes or a masked person for twice that time. The infection rate curve for longer than thirty minutes and more than six feet is not currently available. Most campus spaces do not have sufficient air-exchange rates to be considered well-ventilated.

This time limit increases with more ventilation (open windows) and more spacing, and decreases with more people, less ventilation, and less spacing. The ventilation in academic buildings can vary widely; most were not designed with reducing airborne disease spread in mind.

You can diminish your potential exposure by being aware of risk factors. The risk is higher if you are unvaccinated and much lower if you are vaccinated. The vast preponderance of those hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated. The risk increases with time from the last vaccination; how fast is not fully known, thus the recommendations for booster shots.

The risk is much greater if anyone with COVID-19 is coughing or sneezing, and particularly if they are unmasked or unvaccinated.

Age is a major risk factor with COVID-19. The morbidity and mortality risks can be greater or vastly greater for instructors as they are typically older than students (up to ninety times higher for those over 65). See the CDC’s risk calculations by age group for some startling figures.

The risks of morbidity—long-term effects—are not known but are significantly greater for this disease than for the flu. Many COVID-19 survivors continue to suffer what will likely be severe lifelong health complications.  As the holidays approach, and travel and social gatherings increase the likelihood of exposure, keep these risk factors in mind, especially if you teach at an institution without vaccine requirements.

Additional Resources

Highly cited, Oxford medical professor’s insights about how to protect yourself from COVID-19

Background information on theory and skills to support general understanding

US Department of Education handbook suggests that universities without a vaccine mandate should be: (a) offering vaccination, (b) masking, (c) social (physical) distancing (including outside classes, seats six feet apart, move to larger rooms), (d) handwashing and respiratory etiquette, (e) ensuring that ventilation is adequate, and routine cleaning, and (f) twice weekly testing when transmission is substantial or high, (g) contact tracing, and (h) maintaining healthy operations including communications, support policies, and health equity.

Report noting that COVID-19 is respiratory (transmitted by breathing) and not fomite (transmitted by touch)

Current CDC contact tracing guidelines

Work suggesting that six feet might not be far enough with longer exposure times

FAQs on Protecting Yourself from COVID-19 Aerosol Transmission by leading building ventilation scientists

Frank E Ritter is professor of information sciences and technology and of psychology at Penn State University. Donald A. Donahue is a senior fellow of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and a professor of global health in the Graduate School, University of Maryland Baltimore.