Thread by @cfishman

Colleges & universities face a hard problem:

In just a few weeks, everyone has discovered that being *at* college is a lot different experience — a profoundly better one — than attending college on Zoom.

. . .

2/ So why aren't colleges and universities planning as if they would be welcoming students back in August and September?

What would it take to have students & faculty & staff on campus?

Is that crazy?

Here's what it would take: Campuses that are free of coronavirus.

3/ A radical proposal:

Colleges & universities should immediately form coalitions, and start building their own testing capacity — with the idea of making coronavirus testing part of campus life.

Everyone tested once a week.

4/ Harvard should team up with MIT, BU, BC, Northeastern, Wellesley — and they should agree on the goal:

Test every undergrad, graduate student, faculty and staff member once a week.

At Harvard alone, that might be 60,000 tests a week.

Which is ~ 10,000 tests a day.

5/ What would the Boston area universities need in testing capacity?

200,000 tests a day, to test every student, faculty and staff member?

If your last name begins with A-E, you test on Monday.
If your last name begins with F-K, you test on Tuesday.

6/ Use the 10-minute instant tests.

If you're negative, off to your normal life til next Monday.

If you're positive, you head off to a quarantine dorm — where your meals are delivered, and you go to class online.

Could @Harvard and @MIT pull this off with their sister schools?

7/ One thing is certain: If they don't start *right now* — it won't happen.

But why couldn't it happen?

In World War II, there were individual factories building 14 fighter planes a day.

August 24 — a day school might start — is 17 weeks from now.

17 weeks ago: Dec 29, 2019.

8/ Is it complicated?

Would there be problems to work out?

Won't it be expensive?

Yes, yes and yes.

But is testing everyone every week more expensive than keeping @Harvard and @MIT and @BU_Tweets and @Wellesley closed?

Not even close.

9/ Plus it's exactly the kind of bold leadership we aren't seeing, for some reason, in this pandemic.

@Harvard, of all places, could commit the resources to doing it. To solving the problems, creating a wide coalition, pledging to develop all-new test resources.

10/ Create some hope, create some innovation, create some momentum.

We know how fast you can shut universities — as an example.

If @Harvard and @MIT and @Stanford announced a project like this, well — maybe it wouldn't work.

But it might.

11/ And just the huge undertaking to make it happen would create both the space and the inspiration — not to mention the determination — for a lot of other companies, people and organizations to tackle similar problems.

12/ If you test everyone every week, if you know who is sick & who is not, you create a sense of safety and security.

The person teaching me, the people in class with me, the people at lunch — they've all tested negative.

13/ Yes, some people would slip through.

Tested on Monday, sick on Tuesday.

But that would be small. And caught quickly.

Hey @Harvard — it's worth at least thinking through what welcoming students back would require.

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