Grace Is a Practice

There was certainly much about the hurried switch from in-person to online teaching and learning in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic that inspired angst. The decisions that many colleges and universities made to halt on-campus activities and deconcentrate their communities left scores of us scrambling to pack up some of the things we hoped would help us withstand a few weeks away from our offices and classrooms. When I think back on those frenzied days, I often chuckle at how naive I was about the extent to which the pandemic would radically upend our lives, forcing us to rethink every aspect of our ways of being in the world. I was in the middle of leading a discussion on The Tempest in my dramaturgy course when the official word came down from university administrators that all classes would move online and most students would have to vacate their residence halls. A palpable feeling of dread quickly swept over the stuffy classroom. Students began to weep and to wonder out loud what the news would mean for, say, their senior thesis projects or the department's futuristic mounting of The Tempest, which would have to shutter before its second weekend of scheduled performances. I tried my best to remain optimistic, even as I too began to question what the fast-moving changes would mean for how we would finish out the semester. I felt a special call to offer comfort, reaffirming my commitment to supporting students no matter what was ahead.

Description of a University COVID-19 Outbreak and Interventions to Disrupt Transmission, Wisconsin, August - October 2020.

University settings have demonstrated potential for COVID-19 outbreaks, as they can combine congregate living, substantial social activity, and a young population predisposed to mild illness. Using genomic and epidemiologic data, we describe a COVID-19 outbreak at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison. During August - October 2020, 3,485 students tested positive, including 856/6,162 students living in residence halls. Case counts began rising during move-in week for on-campus students (August 25-31, 2020), then rose rapidly during September 1-11, 2020. UW-Madison initiated multiple prevention efforts, including quarantining two residence halls; a subsequent decline in cases was observed. Genomic surveillance of cases from Dane County, where UW-Madison is located, did not find evidence of transmission from a large cluster of cases in the two residence halls quarantined during the outbreak. Coordinated implementation of prevention measures can effectively reduce SARS-CoV-2 spread in university settings and may limit spillover to the community surrounding the university.

Higher viral load drives infrequent SARS-CoV-2 transmission between asymptomatic residence hall roommates

ABSTRACTIn 2019-2020, the COVID-19 pandemic spread to over 200 countries in less than six months. To understand the basis of this aggressive spread, it is essential to determine the transmission rate and define the factors that increase the risk of transmission. One complication is the large fraction of asymptomatic cases, particularly in young populations: these individuals have viral loads indistinguishable from symptomatic people and do transmit the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but they often go undetected. As university students living in residence halls commonly share a small living space with roommates, some schools established regular, high density testing programs to mitigate on-campus spread. In this study, we analyzed longitudinal testing data of residence hall students at the University of Colorado Boulder. We observed that students in single rooms were infected at a lower rate than students in multiple occupancy rooms. However, this was not due to high rates of transmission between roommates, which only occurred approximately 20% of the time. Since these cases were usually asymptomatic at the time of diagnosis, this provides further evidence for asymptomatic transmission. Notably, individuals who likely transmitted to their roommates had an average viral load ∼6.5 times higher than individuals who did not. Although students were moved to separate isolation rooms after diagnosis, there was no difference in time to isolation between these cases with or without transmission. This analysis argues that inter-roommate transmission occurs in a minority of cases in university residence halls and provides strong correlative evidence that viral load can be proportional to the probability of transmission.

Epidemiological analysis of 3,219 COVID-19 outbreaks in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany.

Background: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has emerged as an unprecedented global crisis challenging health systems. The dynamic nature of the pandemic warrants ongoing characterisation and assessment of outbreak settings to identify groups at greatest risk, to establish early measures to curb transmission. The current analysis aims to assess and characterise SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. Methods: We analysed all mandatory notified (i.e. laboratory-confirmed) coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks from the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg in calendar weeks 18 to 49 (from April 27 to December 06, 2020). We used the following classification for settings: asylum and refugee accommodation, care homes, care facilities, day care child centers, hobby related, hospitality, hospitals, households, other, residence halls, schools, supported housing, training schools, transportation, treatment facilities, and workplace (occupational). We used R program version 3.6.3 for analysis. Results: In the current analysis, 3,219 outbreaks with 22,238 individuals were included. Around 48% of all outbreaks in this period were in household settings and hobby related activities. We observed an exponential increase in the number of notified outbreaks starting around the 41th week with N = 291 outbreaks reported in week 49. We observed an increase in hospitalisations, and mortality associated with COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes after the 40th week. Overall, 70% (500/715) of all deceased persons in outbreaks in the study period were in care homes compared to 4.2% in household settings (30/715). Conclusions: The increase in the number of outbreaks and in the number of cases per outbreak in high-risk settings, specifically in care homes after the 40th week highlights the imperative of controlling transmission in vulnerable populations.

Protests and Pushback: Women's Rights, Student Activism, and Institutional Response in the Deep South

Pivoting around two sit-ins at the University of Georgia, this article examines student activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the US South. The first sit-in, at the conclusion of the spring 1968 March for Coed Equality, was part of the effort to overcome parietal rules that significantly restricted women's rights but left men relatively untouched. The second occurred in 1972 when the university responded to salacious allegations of immorality in women's residence halls by replacing progressive residential education programming with the policing of student behavior. This article centers student efforts for women's rights, demonstrates how students and administrators shifted tactics in reaction to external stimuli, and explores the repercussions of challenging the entrenched patriarchal power structure. In so doing, it joins the growing literature complicating understandings of student activism in the era by focusing attention away from the most famous and extreme cases.

Diversity of SCCmec Elements in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) Recovered from a Healthy Student Population in Kenya

Background: Methicillin-resistant S. aureus continues to be a concern for public health systems, particularly due to infections emerging in non-hospital settings. Resistance to methicillin is presently classified as a serious phenomenon because the majority of methicillin-resistant strains are also multi-drug resistant. The genetic determinant of resistance to methicillin and other β-lactam antibiotics is the mec-A gene, which lies in the SCCmec resistance island. In Kenya, studies done previously have shown the existence of SCCmec types in clinical isolates, but similar information on isolates recovered from healthy populations is scanty.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on healthy university students residing within the university residence halls to determine the carriage of MRSA. MRSA was detected using Cefoxitin (30µg), and mec-A gene and Sccmec elements were detected using conventional PCR methods. A total of 237 students were recruited, and 657 swabs were collected using standards methods for recovering S. aureus.Results: A total of 231 S. aureus isolates were recovered, out of which 26 (11.3%) were MRSA. Out of the 26 MRSA strains, 17 carried the mecA gene in their gene cassettes. SCCmecV was the most prevalent (61.5%), followed by SCCmecII (53.9%) among the MRSA strains. SCCmecIVa, SCCmecIVb, SCCmecIVc and SCCmecIVd were absent in all the isolates. SCCmecV was found to be highly prevalent (64.7%) followed by SCCmecII, 8 (47.1%) among the mecA-positive MRSA strains. On the other hand, small proportions of mecA-negative isolates harbored SCCmecI (0.9%), SCCmecII (3.3%), SCCmec III (0.5%) and SCCmecV (2.3%).Conclusion: This study revealed that the strains recovered from the student population were highly diverse in terms of the SCCmec elements they carried in their gene cassettes.

Evaluation of Snack Food Environment at a Large Hispanic Serving College in South Florida Utilizing the Nutrition Environment Measurement Scale for Vending Machines (NEMS-V)

Objectives Dietary intake is strongly associated with obesity and other chronic diseases. A critical time for developing long-standing eating habits is when adolescents transition to adulthood, leaving the family home. The college student's food environment is an essential point of intervention for establishing healthy eating habits. Vending machines (VM) at colleges are of increased importance as many students use these often to eat between classes and when restaurants are closed at night. Snacks from VM contribute to the diet quality and intake of key nutrients in young people, and >90% of college students consume snacks daily. The objective of this study was to audit the snack food VM environment at a large Hispanic serving university in South Florida. Methods A snack food VM audit of the campus was conducted between June 2019 and January 2020. Utilizing the NEMS-V, all VM on campus were photographed and scored by the principal investigator. NEMS-V categorizes very unhealthy foods as those with ≥35% of calories from fat, >200 calories per portion sold and >400 mg of sodium; unhealthy snacks as <200 calories, >230 ≤400 mg sodium; and healthy snacks as <200 calories per portion, <35% of calories from fat, ≤230 mg of sodium, zero trans fats. Once individual machine scores were calculated, VM content per building and an overall campus report card were generated. Further comparisons were made to evaluate VM content and proximity to restaurants and residence halls. Results A total of 77 VMs, with 2600 available slots, were located and evaluated. A total of 16% were in student housing, 64% were in academic buildings, and 20% were in recreational buildings or parking garages. The average VM contained 35 slots, of which 70% were very unhealthy snacks, 11% were unhealthy snacks, and 19% were healthy snacks. Of the six residence halls on campus, five had greater than 75% very unhealthy snacks available for purchase. Conclusions The VM environment at this large Hispanic serving college contains predominantly very unhealthy choices from which students, faculty, and staff may choose. To date, the choice of VM content has been left to an outside contractor. The poor VM environment is a significant finding to aid in informing policy as the college itself does not have a snack food policy. Funding Sources Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work, Florida International University.