Dear Bereans,
This is the campus update for Monday, December 6, 2021. (See below for some interesting dates as we have just passed the two-year milestone of the first discovery of a patient suffering from what has come to be known as COVID-19.)
Congratulations to all on reaching the end of the Fall 2021 Term, and good luck to all students with final exams and to all faculty with getting your grading done. Thanks as well to staff and labor supervisors for navigating through a term like no other! A special congratulations to the students who are completing all their degree requirements and will ‘commence’ on Saturday morning, the 11th. We cannot wait to celebrate you!
After this issue, the weekly campus updates will be on hiatus for Winter Break. You can expect the next regular update after the turn of the year, likely on Monday, Jan. 3. However, if there are urgent matters to share, an ‘irregular’ update is possible. Please watch your email over Break.
Possible adjustment to academic calendar for Spring 2022
There is much uncertainty regarding the progress of the pandemic in the US and in our region in the coming months. The Delta variant is still very much with us—see below for details of its appearance on campus following Thanksgiving Break—but we have managed to operate with reasonable safety and success in the context of the ongoing outbreak around us, particularly among unvaccinated persons.
With the emergence of the Omicron variant and its discovery now in a number of areas in our country, we are dealing new unknowns. Early indications are that it is more infectious than Delta, which means it may win out and become the dominant variant wherever it is introduced. Early concerns (arising from the large number of mutations this variant has on the spike protein, which is the avenue through which available vaccines target the virus, but uncertain in the absence of real epidemiological data) suggest that vaccinated persons may be less fully protected against Omicron. Finally, there is some data from South Africa suggesting that younger people are more susceptible to Omicron than they were to other variants.
Depending on how these unknowns are resolved, the Administrative Committee has been discussing possible responses. One that I want to alert everyone to at this point is the possibility that the academic calendar may be adjusted to eliminate Spring Break. This scenario envisions that we would start the semester a little later than scheduled, but end at the currently planned time, so that summer schedules are not affected. Should it be prudent to eliminate Spring Break and the temptation to travel, which leads to the likelihood of cases being brought back on campus, we will try to propose a schedule that has some shorter (e.g. long weekend) breaks built in to help sustain our individual and collective resiliency.
Hedging against the possibility that current vaccines may be compromised by Omicron, the vaccine developers are already developing booster that target the variant specifically. Moderna said last week that its version would be ready for submission to the FDA in March. Thus we may be contemplating decisions again about vaccines, boosters, and mandates.
ALL THAT SAID, PLEASE NOTE THAT IT IS TOO SOON TO KNOW, WHAT MEASURES WILL BE PRUDENT. Indeed, it is still possible that there will be no changes to any aspects of our planned operations, but we wanted everyone to know what is on the table.
Quarantine, testing and vaccination update
Five students in addition to the one mentioned last week have tested positive. Four have gone home to isolate and two are isolating on campus. None seem to have serious symptoms at this point. It appears that some of these cases originated off campus because of Thanksgiving travel, but it is possible that one or two were the result of on-campus transmissions, which would be a first for us. With this number of new cases we also have a rather large number of close contacts among students and staff. Fortunately, all of them are vaccinated and so only need to monitor for symptoms and get tested if symptoms appear. ALL OF THIS EXPERIENCE FOLLOWING THANKSGIVING IS A POTENT REMINDER OF THE PREVALENCE OF THE DELTA VARIANT IN MANY AREAS, INCLUDING OUR OWN, AND THE CRITICAL NEED FOR EVERY POSSIBLE PRECAUTION DURING THE UPCOMING WINTER BREAK. The AC will be considering what measures will need to be taken for a safe resumption in January.
As to on-campus employees, we have one new positive test (Athletics) in isolation and one case of a CDL staff member continuing from last week, although that person is not working on campus. Because of the student cases noted above, we have 11 employees who are monitoring for symptoms. We also have one close contact quarantine in the CDL.
Announcement regarding the vaccination incentive for employees
In August of this year, the College opted to provide a one-time $250 vaccination stipend for those employees who became fully COVID-19 vaccinated. This opportunity will end after December 31st, 2021. We encourage all unvaccinated employees to get vaccinated; if you start the vaccination process prior to December 31st and confirm that to HealthyatWork@berea.edu, you are still eligible to receive this stipend when you complete it. For those employees who have already been vaccinated but have not yet turned in documentation to HealthyatWork@berea.edu, you must do so by December 31st to be eligible.
Kentucky and Madison County update
Madison County had a total of 470 new cases for the week ending yesterday, more than doubling the number from last week, when I speculated that there had likely been some reporting issues due to the Thanksgiving holiday. The average number of new cases per day has increased to 67, which keeps us in the Red zone. We have had five more deaths in the county in the last week, which brings the total to 200. The vaccination rate in the County is 48.6%.
Kentucky reported 16,286 new cases for the week ending today for an average of 2,327 cases/day—our current rate of increase is nearly 30%/week. The Commonwealth has reported 376 deaths over the last week for an average number of deaths/day of 54, also a large increase, but lagging a bit behind the rate of growth of new cases. The test positivity rate is still increasing and is now 9.13%.
The improvement noted last week in Kentucky seems to have been spurious due to Thanksgiving holiday interruption of reporting. The general increase of cases has resumed and is accelerating, still mostly among unvaccinated persons.
Vaccination policy at other colleges and universities
As of this morning, the Chronicle of Higher Education lists 1,140 schools that are requiring vaccination in the current term, a decrease of two schools over last week.
Stay safe, get vaccinated and boosted, stay in touch,
Lyle Roelofs, President
Berea College
Some dates:
- The first known observation of a novel coronavirus illness in Wuhan China occurred on Dec. 3, 2019, so in the past week we passed the two-year milestone of humanity enduring and trying to deal with this pestilence.
- The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) announced “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” as the name of the new virus on 11 February 2020. This name was chosen because the virus is genetically related to the coronavirus responsible for the SARS outbreak of 2003. While related, the two viruses are different. On the same date the World Health Organization (WHO) named the illness caused by this virus COVID-19, standing for COrononaVIrusDisease of 2019.
- The WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
- On March 17, 2020, Berea College announced it was closing for in-person classes and residential housing effective at the end of the day on March 20, 2020.