UNC’s response to COVID has changed. It still falls short.
Take one look at UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus and you might forget we were in a pandemic. Aside from mask-wearing, much of student life has returned to a pre-pandemic “normal” — students are living and learning on campus, eating together at the dining hall, taking a sip from the Old Well on the first day of classes.
The university is attempting to pull off a return to in-person operations after a disastrous attempt at reopening last fall. In a column published earlier this month, I suggested UNC might repeat last year’s mistakes. In response, UNC Media Relations reached out to offer a conversation with Dr. Amir Barzin, a family medicine physician who advises the university on its COVID response.
“I think there’s a huge, huge, huge difference between last year and this year,” Barzin, who designed UNC’s Carolina Together Testing Program, told me. Testing capacity is higher, vaccines are widely available and our understanding of the virus has improved relative to last fall, Barzin said.
All of that may be true, and it’s hard to strike a balance between those who push for tougher precautions and others, including state legislators, who resist them altogether. But the biggest flaw in UNC’s plan hasn’t changed at all from last year: leaders aren’t prepared for disaster because they won’t acknowledge it might happen. Last fall, UNC was heavily criticized for its failure to specify when and how it might execute an “off-ramp,” or contingency plan, in the event of accelerated viral spread. That toxic positivity created serious blind spots, and this year, there’s signs of the same tunnel vision.
Barzin wouldn’t say whether the university had any plans for an off-ramp this year.
“I think that what we do is just watch and we look and see kind of what we have in terms of ability to do the things that are important,” Barzin said. “We absorb everything that’s going on and try to make the best decisions possible. And a lot of this is based off of the fact that we are in a good position right now to continue to do the things that we’re doing.”
Even with some protective measures in place, there’s still some risk associated with reopening. In the absence of a vaccine mandate and capacity limits in indoor settings, people aren’t convinced that UNC is doing enough to minimize or contain that risk. And the university’s refusal to fully acknowledge it is a source of fear and frustration for many.
UNC is asking us to put a lot of faith in its ability to manage the pandemic. But many people don’t trust the university to keep them safe — and for good reason. UNC has established itself as a lightning rod for slip-ups and scandals, and it’s seriously damaged the school’s credibility. Besides, the university’s track record during the pandemic doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
In 2020, 135 positive cases, a 13.6% positivity rate and four COVID-19 clusters were enough to trigger a pivot to remote instruction one week into the semester. In the last seven days, the university has seen 105 positive cases, a positivity rate of 1.9% and one active cluster, according to its COVID-19 dashboard. (For comparison, UNC’s overall positivity rate for the spring semester was 0.3%.)
“I’m really happy with the way things are starting out in the semester,” Barzin said. “The number of cases we’re seeing are right where we would have expected to see caseloads.”
Some number of students and employees are going to get sick, and the university seems to have accepted that as collateral damage. But how many positive cases is too many? What do we do if it comes to that? Students and faculty have real concerns, and UNC needs to address them.
University leaders may be focused on student safety, but their “wait and see” approach has already failed students once. Toxic positivity didn’t work for UNC last year — the university shouldn’t expect it to work now, either.
This story was originally published August 23, 2021 at 1:29 PM.
