UK’s fall semester brought a COVID-19 spike to Lexington. Will spring be different?
Lexington’s rolling average of new COVID-19 cases has hit its lowest point in January, signaling the city has begun to overcome the post-Christmas spike of infections.
But a city fighting off its worst surge yet has a new potential challenge. College students have returned to UK’s campus for a second semester amid the pandemic. Their in-person classes started Monday.
UK had more than 3,000 COVID-19 cases among students in the fall, which amounted to more than 12 percent of the on-campus student population. A large number of those occurred early in the semester, as UK reported more than 50 new student cases per day during a September period.
The rolling seven-day average of new cases on campus was higher than that for the rest of the Lexington community at one point.
But UK carried on with instruction while taking additional COVID-fighting steps, which included extra testing and cracking down on parties. Outbreaks in the Greek student community prompted follow-up testing for those students. University officials are hopeful that lessons learned in the fall will allow the university to cut down on cases this semester.
“We know we had a surge at the beginning of the fall, and then it went down, we think because of the effectiveness of some of those measures,” UK spokesman Jay Blanton said. “... We want to have as few cases as possible, obviously.”
UK’s COVID-19 response team expands, testing will be frequent
UK learned “how critical testing is” during the fall semester, Blanton said. The university plans to do more of it this semester.
Early testing for the spring semester revealed a total of 384 students cases as of Friday. Of those, 132 were active cases, according to UK’s coronavirus dashboard.
University leaders hope “baseline” testing combined with additional targeted testing — like wastewater testing in dorms and follow-up testing in suspected hot spots — will help limit the spread further. That targeted testing would apply to outbreaks in specific dorms or in Greek housing.
“Nothing compared to the prevalence among fraternity and sorority life early on (in the fall),” Blanton said.
The university was able to control physical distancing in dorms by limiting the number of residents in each room and in shared bathrooms. It wasn’t able to implement those same restrictions in fraternity and sorority houses.
An “integrated and robust” response to COVID-19 cases is also going to be crucial, Blanton said. UK set up a health care infrastructure team in the fall to handle on-campus cases similar to the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department’s handling of community cases.
UK Health Corps conducted testing, contact tracing, quarantine enforcement and additional services as UK tried to cut down on cases. That health care team had expanded to about 55 people by the start of the spring semester, Blanton said.
Fall showed no evidence of COVID-19 spread in classes, UK says
Enforcing physical distancing and using personal protective equipment worked to keep coronavirus transmission low during classes, Blanton said.
“We had no evidence of classroom spread last semester,” he said.
UK’s guideline enforcement was applauded by the Lexington health department. Health officials are only worried about UK’s potential contribution to a COVID-19 spike if students don’t follow the guidelines.
“UK has set great guidelines for students to follow to continue to help slow the spread of COVID-19,” said Christina King, a spokesperson for the health department. “As long as the majority of students follow these guidelines, we don’t feel there is a definite reason for concern.”
Coronavirus vaccine could be a ‘game-changer’ this semester
UK is working to pump out vaccinations as quickly as supply lines will allow. The university was distributing vaccinations to Phase 1A and Phase 1B workers in the community. They hoped to start getting it to the campus community as quickly as possible.
“That could be a game-changer for us throughout the semester,” Blanton said.
How quickly that happens will be dictated by supply lines and the state’s progression through the targeted vaccine groups. But the continuation of classes won’t necessarily be dependent on vaccine distribution.
UK’s factors for carrying on with in-person classes include personal protective equipment supply, case numbers, capacity for daily screening and ongoing contact tracing, isolation and quarantine capacity, residential capacity, guidance from local, state and federal officials and the number of critical care beds available in UK HealthCare’s network.
This story was originally published January 25, 2021 at 1:20 PM.