Want colleges open? Think students are irrelevant to the pandemic? Think again. New research finds students brought COVID back from spring break, increasing cases & deaths.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
The researchers from Vanderbilt & Ball State used spring-break schedules for 1,326 universities and 7.5 million students, then used cell-phone mobility data, COVID case and death data to reach their conclusions. 2/
They found increases in cases two weeks after students returned from spring break & increases in deaths -- in the larger community then -- three to five weeks after the return. That is to say the students affect the community. That, I assume, includes faculty, staff + families 3/
They found that students who traveled by air to Florida and NYC contributed more to COVID spread than the average student. 4/
"Our results suggest that reducing long-distance student travel can reduce COVID-19 spread both within the university and for higher-risk individuals in the surrounding county," the researchers say. 5/
"[U]niversities have the power to make targeted decisions that affect the behavior of nearly 8 million undergraduates who have the potential to impose large negative externalities via infection spread," they continue. 6/
"Our estimates imply a 3.7 percentage point higher exponential growth rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases two weeks after students return to campus." And 1.2% higher mortality 3-5 weeks later, they say. 7/
The researchers are Daniel Mangrum of Vanderbilt and Paul Niekamp of Ball State. /fin
