WEBVTT - One College Is Containing Covid 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:05.400 Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day two hundred 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:09.639 and thirty seven since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:14.840 Today's main story. The risk of COVID nineteen transmission is 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:19.600 high on college campuses, where students live in close quarters 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:24.320 and may avoid following social distancing rules. But one upstate 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:29.560 New York University has stayed open and managed to control 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:34.760 its COVID cases. But first, here's what happened in Virus 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:43.680 News Today. Infections in the US increased by one point 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.919 three percent on Friday, with Iowa, North Dakota, Michigan, and 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:53.120 Colorado seeing the biggest single day rises. That's according to 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:58.480 data compiled by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News. Yesterday, 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.480 new cases passed a hundred and twenty six thousand, a 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:07.320 global record for a single nation. Johnson and Johnson is 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:10.640 about to start clinical trials of its COVID nineteen vaccine 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.680 in South Africa after getting regulatory approval, according to the 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:19.319 co chair of the study in the country. Meanwhile, scientists 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:23.600 monitoring wastewater in one region of the country detected spikes 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:28.080 of the coronavirus in the last three weeks. The government 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:31.720 is concerned that a lack of compliance with health guidelines 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:37.720 may trigger a second wave. Finally, France posted a record 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.319 number of new virus cases as the nation's health minister, 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:45.160 Olivier Veron warned that a violent second wave of the 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:50.360 illness is sweeping the country. He said virus patients now 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:54.800 occupy more than eighty five percent of French hospitals initial 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:59.720 intensive care facilities. Europe is battling a new surge in 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:03.840 the IRS, with France starting a second lockdown just last 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:13.360 week and now for today's main story, Cornell University in 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.960 upstate New York welcomed around twenty four thousand people back 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:22.080 to campus this fall. The idea of students packed into 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:27.320 dorms and mingling in classrooms made many people nervous, But 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:32.079 while outbreaks have plagued colleges across the country, Cornell has 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:36.440 managed to keep a lid on its COVID cases. In fact, 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.399 the college's test positivity rate has been among the lowest 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.560 of any college or university in the country doing large 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:49.160 scale testing. I spoke with reporter and a court, an 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:53.120 alumna of Cornell about how the school has done it. 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:00.640 You know the story with so many colleges and universities 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.160 around the US for the full term has either been 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:08.520 one of online or distance learning, and many of the 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.480 stories we even have heard about students on campus has 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:16.079 been pretty negative news UM with outbreaks and the spread 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:20.280 of COVID, but not Cornell. And I was wondering if 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.320 you might just unpack what what happened at Cornell to 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:28.520 make it this success story. Yeah, so I would know. 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.840 Cornell isn't the only school that has been able to 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.360 keep cases very low, but it's what's significant is what 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.480 a big school it is. Cornell reopened its campus about 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:44.080 two thousand people in the late summer, and really what 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.080 they did was kind of take all the public health 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:51.280 measures that are recommended, and in fact, they say that 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:53.720 their experience is a testament to the fact that the 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:56.720 things that we've been talking to about throughout this whole pandemic, 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.480 from you know, frequent testing all the way to to 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:04.280 mask wearing and handwashing that they work. Most significant about 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:07.480 what Cornell did, I would say is that frequent testing. 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.200 They're testing about thirty five thousand students, faculty and staff 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.800 a week. Undergrads are tested as frequently as twice a week. 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.800 Uh and that they say that has helped them find 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.520 these people who could be you know, asymptomatic silent spreaders 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:25.080 of the virus and and really tamped down on that 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.400 spread and you know, isolate people and prevent further infections 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:33.080 on campus. Another thing that they really cite for their 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.200 success has been sort of a souped up version of 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.080 of contact tracing. They do something called that they call 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:43.800 adaptive testing, which is instead of sort of adhering to 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:46.520 the strict definition of a of a contact. You know, 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:49.440 there are different definitions for contact tracing, but in New 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.039 York State, it's someone who's been within six ft of 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:56.520 someone who had a confirmed COVID nineteen infection for about 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.360 ten minutes. So they did something a little bit more 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.320 expanse of They did do contact tracing, but they also 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.080 did this thing where they looked at people who might 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:09.279 have been exposed but weren't technically close contact. So if 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:11.839 you're living on a dorm floor and you turn out 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:14.840 to have COVID nineteen, they might test everyone on that 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:17.760 floor because you're all sharing a bathroom. If you're on 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:21.080 a hockey team, maybe you weren't technically within six ft 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:23.640 of someone for ten minutes, but you know, you're likely 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.279 spending time around them and maybe you could be infected, 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.920 so maybe you test the whole hockey team. So they say, 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:30.880 this is something that kind of goes above and beyond 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.960 the call of duty and you know, help them basically 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.040 locked down the chains of transmission on campus. I was 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.559 wondering if you might go into just actually how low 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:45.760 the infection rate has been on campus. And I mean, 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:50.279 among those few infections that Cornell has seen, where are 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.839 we seeing transmission coming from. Is this something that students 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.840 are being exposed in the classroom or or is it 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:01.040 coming really from somewhere else. Just to start off with, 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.520 I just pulled up Cornell's COVID dashboard and right now 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:08.320 their positivity rate is point zero four percent, so you know, 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:12.080 point zero four percent of their test return positive. That's 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.120 really good. And in a recent week, a couple of 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.760 weeks ago, it was actually as low as point zero 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:19.200 zero six percent, So they were joking that they would 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.200 have to add another, you know, decimal place to the 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.680 online dashboard. Um, it was so low. You know, if 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.520 you look at how many cases they've had since they reopened, 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.560 it's been about hundred and seventy one cases from mid 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:38.360 August to basically now through November four. That's really significant 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:40.839 because that is very low, and they do have a 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.400 lot of people, you know, thousand people on campus. You know, 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:46.960 things didn't look like they were going to go quite 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:49.919 this way when I first started my reporting, though, you know, 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.559 I talked to a lot of people in August before 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:57.839 campus reopened, and the plan was constantly changing. There was 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:01.640 a lot of anxiety among people in the unity, you know, students, 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.280 their parents, faculty members, because it looked like a big 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.240 risk that Cornell was taking. They were bringing all these 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.200 people to upstate New York, you know, at the time 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.680 had been very much untouched by COVID nineteen. It was 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:17.000 very you know, rates were very low, and so it 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:20.760 seemed like things could go pretty awry. And in fact, 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.520 you know, as students were coming back to campus, there 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:27.760 was an early cluster of cases on campus that really 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:29.880 raised a lot of alarm bells, you know, which was 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:34.520 actually tied to student athletes socializing without the proper you know, 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:39.160 social distancing and mask wearing. Um but you know, Cornell 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:44.640 again really credits this aggressive testing and and contact tracing 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.000 to helping kind of stand that chain of transmission. And 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.480 in fact, you know, they did a lot of interesting 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:54.760 modeling around how infection good spread around campus, really plotting 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:56.680 out a lot of different scenarios. That's actually how they 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.400 ended up doing so much testing. They realized they needed 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.280 to in order to keep infection low, and they set 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.320 out a couple of different scenarios for how you know, 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:09.520 infections could spread. And the actual cases on campus have 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.480 actually stayed so low that they've been far lower than 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.400 even the most optimistic scenario, which I think is is 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:21.440 really a testament to to what they've done. And you know, 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:25.160 you've mentioned a lot of this plan, um, and and 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:29.120 perhaps their success does revolve around the amount of testing 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.920 that's going on, and and that's quite a significant amount 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:37.360 of testing. I was just curious how is the university 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:42.640 handling this this amount of regular testing. Cornell actually set 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.719 up a new lab in its veterinary school to do 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.880 human testing. Interestingly, a number of colleges and universities have 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.960 actually done this because um, this mode of you know, 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.480 the common mode of COVID nineteen testing is is something 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:59.839 called polymaries chain reaction tests, and they're actually often you 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.040 to look for disease and animals UM. The big thing 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:05.520 that they did, and other colleges have done this too, 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.679 is that they did something called pooling, where you put 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:13.079 multiple samples together um and process them at the same time. 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:15.960 This is something that works actually best when you don't 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.440 have a lot of infection on campus, as Cornell has. 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.280 You know, it's important to note that this has been 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.000 a big push for Cornell, and they're running their lab 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:28.800 you know, practically seven and and it's been difficult. You know, 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.800 they set up all these centers around campus for people 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:33.600 to get their samples collected. You know, it's a it's 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.480 a nasal swab, and it's something that you know, took 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.120 up a lot of their resources, but also you know 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.200 a lot of participation from the community to go in 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:47.160 and get tested so frequently. And you've raised a really 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:51.280 important point. I think that many other colleges and universities 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.760 might be looking to Cornell's policy because, I mean, in 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.920 all honesty, Cornell has been able to welcome students back, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.360 They've been able to collect, particularly from the financial angle 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.160 room and board rents from the students that are back 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:11.640 on campus. Is this something that perhaps other college campuses 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.960 other universities can look to Cornell as perhaps a model 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:19.440 for how they can apply this policy on their own campuses. 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.960 You know, a lot of cynics and skeptics when colleges 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:27.200 said that they were going to reopen, pointed to the 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.560 fact that college has had a real financial incentive to reopen. 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.760 You know, it's hard to justify charging a lot of 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:36.760 tuition when your students are basically, you know, at home, 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:41.520 living with their parents, you know, taking classes online. I 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:46.120 think for Cornell what's important to note is that they 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.320 did have advantages and they and they acknowledge those advantages. 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.000 You know, from the fact that Ithaca is a pretty 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.800 remote location. Ithaca when you're driving up is really a 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:59.600 lot of cows and fields. So you know, that's an 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.040 advance Didge because you don't have a lot of people 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.240 coming and going from other places where they can bring 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.640 the virus. Although Cornell has had people bring the virus 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:10.240 that way to campus and they've found it using that testing. 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.080 And there are other advantages just conferred by their you know, 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:18.880 financial and scientific resources that are important to note and 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:22.559 and again might be hard for other schools to replicate, 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:27.440 particularly if they don't you know, have these kinds of resources. 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.200 And I mean here we are. It's early November, but 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.480 the end of the fall semester is in sight. Students 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.280 are about to leave to to go on holiday, to 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.400 go back to their family and friends all over the 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:46.679 US and the world. Is this going to affect Cornell's 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:51.600 plan for the spring or is this fall scenario what 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:55.000 Cornell is expecting to adopt in the spring. Yeah, Cornell 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.320 is planning US spring semester, you know in person. You know, 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:00.720 they're hoping to bring even more students back this time, 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.800 hoping to do more classes in person um and they 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:07.280 have a lot more time to plan now than they 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:10.680 did last time. A lot of things were really quickly 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:14.200 changing right before the semester began um, including you know, 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:16.800 a lot of students were coming from states that had 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:18.839 been put on New York State's quarantine list, and so 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.800 that made it very difficult logistically for everyone to come back. 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:25.720 I think it's important to think about also how things 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:29.000 will be different in the spring semester. You know, they're 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.480 planning on starting classes in February. You know, the weather 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.160 in February and Ithaca can be quite cold, and as 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:38.920 we all know, winter could be a real time of 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:43.120 spreading COVID because of those cold temperatures, bringing people to 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:45.480 gather inside more where they could you know, are more 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.280 likely also to spread the virus. So you know, it's 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:50.920 going to bring a new slate of challenges for Cornell. 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:54.360 And in fact, right now the university is already seeing 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:58.959 um infection rates in surrounding communities on the rise. And 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:01.800 so it kind of went from the situation where the 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:07.200 community was worried about Cornell bringing COVID to their backyards 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.840 and now Cornell is is starting to warily look at 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.480 the community and say, maybe people are going to get sick, 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:15.920 you know, in our surrounding areas, and they've they've started 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:25.760 to see some of that already. That was Emma Corp. 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:28.640 And that's it for our show today. For coverage of 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.440 the outbreak from one and twenty bureaus around the world, 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:36.680 visit Bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if you like 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.200 the show, please leave us a review and a rating 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.880 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:47.680 help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.840 edition is produced by Topha Foreheads, Jordan gas Pure, Magnus 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:56.640 Henrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:01.439 by Emma Corp. Original music by Leo sidrin Our. Editors 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:06.160 are Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesca Levi is Bloomberg's 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:08.760 head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.