By Rebecca Li, Staff Writer, and Anna Hsu, Co-Editor-in-Chief

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Part I: Revisiting Concerns from Previous COVID Semesters
• Part II: Taking Omicron Seriously
• Part III: A Safer Plan
  • Delayed semester & mandatory remote options
  • Testing
  • Masks
  • Isolation space
  • Ventilation
  • Paid sick leave
• Part IV: Summary and Call to Action
• Part V: Additional Suggestions for Community Members

Introduction 

On March 20, 2020, Bryn Mawr (in collaboration with Haverford) announced a fully remote semester because “it has become increasingly clear that it is neither responsible nor realistic to plan on resuming in-person classes or events.” The College declared “our highest priority must be to protect the health and well-being of members of the Bryn Mawr community. We also have a responsibility to contribute to the larger effort to slow the spread of the virus.” 

On January 7, 2022, Presidents Kim Cassidy and Wendy Raymond sent a letter to the Bi-Co community expressing their eagerness to welcome students back to campus for the Spring semester. In the letter, they “anticipate higher numbers of COVID cases among students, staff, and faculty throughout this semester than earlier in the pandemic.” 

It has been two years since the start of the pandemic. Fatigue is understandable on an individual level. However, on an administrative level, fatigue cannot be used to justify throwing caution to the wind. Throughout the country, authorities have given in to exhaustion, convenience, and short-sighted expedience. This pattern must not continue at the Bi-Co. 

The consequences of negligence have devastated the country, causing mass death and disability. The United States has already set a global daily record of over one million COVID cases, doubling the previous record. Hospitals are in collapse, with the CDC forecasting tens of thousands of new COVID patients per day. Health care workers are exhausted and demoralized from years of traumatizing and grueling labor.

Transmission must be minimized: this is the only ethical position consistent with any declaration that purports to prioritize community health and safety. The College’s current inaction puts into question the strength of its convictions.

Part I: Revisiting Concerns from Previous COVID Semesters

Omicron, the latest SARS-CoV-2 variant, is spreading like wildfire and pushing already strained healthcare resources to the brink. The surge is causing high levels of disruptions and infection, and may leave a generation to deal with long-term diminished health. Bryn Mawr should spare no effort in engaging all of the well-known mitigation tools and strategies for minimizing transmission. In doing so, it will protect against the current surge and prepare for future challenges.

Since Fall 2020, members from across the Bi-Co community—students, parents, alum, faculty, staff and more—have criticized Bryn Mawr’s lackluster COVID-19 mitigation protocol. Yet for Spring 2022, Bryn Mawr has only further weakened its guidelines. Among other relaxed policies, visitors are now “welcome” on campus and in dorms, students are allowed off-campus without any mandatory restrictions, indoor maskless activities are permitted and full capacities will be maintained. And despite ongoing staff shortages, poor safety conditions, and long lines, the College describes indoor dining—one of the riskiest pandemic activities—as an opportunity “to eat in well-ventilated spaces” and minimize the presence of “food waste” in dormitory garbage disposal. Furthermore, indoor dining will commence from the very start of the semester, prior to the return of on-campus testing results. 

As the College once said, “we do not need positive test results to know that we must act now to protect our community, particularly the most vulnerable among us.”

Part II: Taking Omicron Seriously

The World Health Organization warns against taking Omicron lightly: “people infected with Omicron can have the full spectrum of disease, from asymptomatic infection to mild disease, all the way to severe disease to death.” Even those diagnosed with so-called mild COVID cases can experience physical and cognitive exhaustion, as well as long-term disabilities. And the next variant to arise may become more severe.

Furthermore, long COVID is not rare and can include neurological damage. It may occur even with mild cases; it is not clear how much vaccines can protect against long COVID. A study from FAIR Health suggests that nearly one in every four cases, regardless of severity, may result in post-COVID symptoms that may last for months or permanently. Other studies found that more than 50% of infected individuals may experience long COVID. And the risk of long COVID is not evidently different with Omicron.

Omicron is at least 2.7 to 3.7 times more infectious than the already highly infectious Delta strain. Therefore preventing its spread will require shoring up precautions and protocols. Omicron is suspected to have increased immune evasion capability, allowing it to bypass antibodies and many monoclonal treatments.

Beyond individual effects, there are societal ones. Skyrocketing cases overwhelm health systems and accelerate the possibilities for future variants. Across the US, cases are up 215%, hospitalizations are up 82% and deaths are up 16% in the last 14 days alone. Currently, more than one person dies from COVID every minute. 

The New York Times indicates that Montgomery and Delaware Counties—home of the Bi-Co— are experiencing extremely high cases, as well as increased hospitalization and deaths. Last week set the highest record to date for total reported weekly cases in Delaware County. Indeed, the test positivity rate is so high in both counties that the New York Times notes that reported cases numbers are believed to be a significant undercount. Montgomery County has a 13% test positivity rate, and Delaware County 16%. 

It is unclear how dire the conditions must be for the College to take serious preventative action. 

Part III: A Safer Plan

Bryn Mawr urgently needs a safer plan before welcoming everyone back on campus. 

The greatest risk of transmission occurs at the start of semester, when a large campus population returns from around the world in the midst of record case counts. Transmission must be tightly controlled out of the gate, or it risks snowballing. Bryn Mawr’s current plan invites an avalanche: expecting positive test results on the 18th and 19th, but sending students back to in-person instruction on the 18th and resuming indoor dining anyway. 

It remains ethically dubious to require students to return to campus during a time when it is expected that many will acquire infections as a result. It is a failure to accommodate our most vulnerable community members, and a heightened risk for all campus employees and their families.

The easiest and most effective solution is to delay all in-person activity and go fully remote for the first two weeks, while rapid-testing everyone daily. This buys time to identify positives, and isolate and quarantine where needed. A uniform and straightforward policy is needed to minimize unplanned disruptions. 

Beyond the first two weeks, the ongoing danger will be people mingling on- and off-campus. To maintain early detection capability, regular testing requirements must remain throughout the semester. This is the consequence of pushing a full campus return with students living in close quarters in old dormitories during an ongoing pandemic.

In addition to PCR testing, rapid antigen tests should be widely available and used serially. Rapid tests and even PCR tests have limited sensitivity: false negatives are not unusual. Therefore they can only be used to rule in cases of infection, but not to rule out. Daily consecutive tests offer the best likelihood for detecting all positives.

Beyond testing, Omicron is still an airborne disease. It is therefore vital to avoid the 3 C’s and ensure clean air in shared closed spaces. The Bi-Co must provide adequate infrastructure (e.g. HEPA filtration, CO2 monitors) in all public indoor spaces, including dorms and bathrooms. 

Even then, shared air is often unavoidable and ventilation is too slow to protect the immediate occupants of a room. A well-fitting, high quality mask should therefore be required in all indoor spaces at all times. Surgical masks, which are loose fitting and do not protect against aerosols, should not be given the same status as KN95, KF94 or N95 masks. 

Given that the market is overrun with counterfeit masks, the Bi-Co should purchase and provide its own stock of reliable, comfortable, and tight-fitting options from well-vetted sources (e.g. Gerson 3230+ and 3M 9205/9210, which may be purchased from Project95 and 3M, respectively).

No single mitigation factor is perfect. Combined, it’s the swiss cheese model: layers of protection which work together to present the most solid defense possible.

Out of concern for the safety of the Bi-Co community, we have considered various areas where the College’s COVID guidelines falter and how to improve them. We would like to reiterate that the action items listed are reasonable and necessary requests that are currently nonexistent in the Spring Mitigation Plan. Though some may disagree with details of our proposal, we ask readers to consider the broader picture in asking the Bi-Co administration to improve upon health and safety measures for the upcoming semester.

For detailed reporting on our proposals, continue below. For the essential facts, click here. 

1. Delayed semester & mandatory remote options

Staff, students, and faculty alike have expressed deep concern about the inadequacy of the Bi-Co’s preparation for the fast approaching semester. 

On-campus testing is scheduled for January 18 and 19; results will return even later. However, to date, the Bi-Co is committed to beginning in-person instruction on January 18. Given that the College expects positive cases, some students—acting in full accordance with the College’s requirements—will be going to class while positive and may act as vectors of spread. 

The only current safeguard proposed by administration is to suggest that “faculty [have] the option to offer their own classes virtually for the first week in light of the particular pedagogical needs of each class and individual circumstances.” 

One Bi-Co faculty indicated that “faculty would have preferred a more uniform guideline that is driven by everyone’s safety” in order to “create a safe bubble to move forward. This is what Swarthmore is doing.” (Swarthmore, a member of the Tri-Co, plans to begin with one preparatory week of asynchronous assignments, followed by a week of remote classes). 

The same faculty member advocated increased testing, delay of in-person classes, and greater planning for rapid and flexible switches to remote instruction. They note the lack of a plan for continuing lectures if a faculty member tests positive, and critiques the lack of technological support for hybrid classes, which require in-person and remote students to be able to adequately communicate. 

An anonymous staff member shares similar worries about the confusion of leaving a remote first week up to the discretion of individual professors, highlighting how the current policy lacks flexibility for students and staff. They are also concerned about “staffing shortages in crucial areas that will impact residential students [and] the logistics of having in-person classes that students can’t attend.” They question the push for in-person operations, saying “we have been told that we know we can pivot, and yet we seem to be acting in ways that suggest we can’t.” 

A Haverford student disability advocacy group (DASH) started a petition asking for widespread hybrid options for classes throughout the Bi-Co, criticizing the current guidelines as discriminatory again those who are disabled, immunocompromised, and/or isolating. From Renata Muñoz, its author:

I’m an immunocompromised student and feel unsafe given the BiCo’s COVID plans. I have been told by members of Haverford’s admin that I should never feel like I need to sacrifice my health at Haverford, yet the colleges had put us in that exact position.

When the world has been saying it’s encouraging that COVID is only severe for those at high risk, immunocompromised people have been listening. And this message tells us that we are “acceptable” collateral damage. I hope that our institutions can reject that sentiment, and provide an accessible learning environment where immunocompromised people don’t feel like we’re disposable.”

– Renata Muñoz, Disability Advocacy for Students at Haverford (DASH)

Across the country, universities and colleges are shifting to 2+ weeks of remote classes. At the University of Michigan, 20% of UMichigan faculty signed a letter pledging to teach or support those who teach remotely due to COVID-19 safety concerns. Yet, the Bi-Co is pushing ahead with in-person classes, citing vaccination, booster, face-covering requirements, and purportedly low transmission in past semesters. But its current mitigation strategies are simply inadequate in the face of the new variant.

2. Testing

Regular rapid testing must be mandated and accessible for all campus personnel throughout the semester. This is absolutely essential in the first two weeks of a return to campus due to the high risks incurred by traveling during the highest peak of the pandemic thus far. Any person returning from travel, at any point during the semester, should test at least daily and minimize contacts. This will help flag positive cases early and facilitate the resulting necessary and timely isolations and quarantines. (A negative result alone cannot be a free pass out of quarantine and isolation. False negatives are not rare with PCR and are even more common with rapid testing.)

In the summer of 2020, Bryn Mawr showed some understanding of the importance of testing during the Town Hall, promising to obtain point-of-care testing as soon as possible. The College was even prescient about the potential for rapid tests to emerge, later suggesting in Fall 2020 that, if they were available in time, students may be required to take rapid tests before returning to campus.

However, in the years since, the College has made no deliverable progress on acquiring rapid tests.

(To date, Bryn Mawr has neglected to secure rapid antigen home tests for students, instead asking students who are having difficulties acquiring them to “look online” or “contact [their] local public health office.” The current shortage of COVID testing kits has resulted in delays and price gouging, making it difficult for students to acquire test kits on their own. Other universities, such as Rutgers, have free rapid test vending machines and contactless submission readily available for students.) 

Bi-Co students have been asked to submit proof of a negative test within 48 hours prior to their return. In a time of unparalleled high transmission, this is insufficient to maximize students’ safety. Instead, testing should be done both before and after travel, as well as frequently in the days following arrival on campus in order to catch as many positive cases as possible. 

Instead of regular, point-of-care testing throughout the pandemic, the College has relied on infrequent, unevenly spaced group testing communicated via mass campus emails. The College now cites low on-campus positivity as evidence to support their claims of adequate testing protocols. But given the prevalence of asymptomatic cases, such limited surveillance testing makes detection difficult and puts the campus at great risk of breakthrough infections. And with Omicron, the positivity rate this semester is expected to be higher.

For the first four weeks of the Spring semester, the Spring 2022 guidelines mention that surveillance testing will be conducted for undergraduate students. No further details are available: the type and frequency of testing are unknown, as is the testing plan for faculty, staff, and non-undergraduate students. 

Beyond the first four weeks, the plan for surveillance testing—the lynchpin of any mitigation plan—becomes increasingly opaque. The sole indication of any future surveillance testing is a vague assurance to “conduct targeted surveillance testing where indicated.”

It is unclear what price estimates the College has run on what it would cost to increase testing, nor on how much the College is currently spending on testing.

3. Masks 

Every person on campus must be required to wear well-fitting, high-quality masks (ideally N95, and certainly not surgical) in all closed spaces outside their own dorm room, at all times. To ensure this, the College must provide authentic, properly sourced N95 masks to all students, faculty and staff from day one.

The Spring 2022 masking guidelines currently have many exemptions where masking is merely “strongly encouraged” in public spaces. 

Additionally, loose-fitting masks provide almost no protection against airborne transmission. Bryn Mawr has partially acknowledged this by banning the exclusive use of cloth masks, but still allows surgical masks, which do not protect against airborne transmission, and includes them in the same category as N95, KN95, and KF94 masks.  

4. Isolation space

It cannot be overstated how transmissible Omicron is. Positive students—symptomatic or not—must isolate. 

Bryn Mawr’s current isolation plan is even weaker than it was in Fall 2020, when Radnor was reserved as isolation housing. This in part due to the College’s choice to follow the widely criticized new CDC guidance to shorten isolation and quarantine periods—without a negative test requirement. The guidance was designed in part to keep hospitals and businesses staffed, and its applicability to colleges is questionable.

Additionally, it is clear that the current plan lacks adequate isolation housing, and further, it is clear that Bryn Mawr is aware of this. Currently, Bryn Mawr plans to “isolate symptomatic students in Wyndham to the extent possible,” according to a January 6th letter from the Bryn Mawr Operations Group. Positive asymptomatic students “may be advised by the medical team [to] isolate in their dorm rooms.”

The Spring 2022 guidelines further detail that “students who live in singles will be asked to isolate in their rooms” as Wyndham isolation space will be reserved for “residential students living in rooms where isolation is not possible.” The logistics of isolating while using shared bathrooms and facilities have not been provided.

5. Ventilation

A permanent return to in-person operations will require forward thinking. Omicron will not be the last variant and there is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2is evolving to become weaker. Intrinsic severity is difficult to estimate, and preliminary evidence even suggests that Omicron is stronger than the variant it evolved from. 

Investing in clean air now will protect against whatever the virus brings next. It will also minimize the spread of other airborne diseases, from common colds and influenza to the tuberculosis seen on Bryn Mawr campus in 2020.  

It is now well known that COVID primarily spreads through airborne transmission. Adequate ventilation is critical to prevent aerosol transmission. Aerosols linger for hours after the person generating them has left the room. In all public indoor spaces, including dorms and bathrooms: HEPA filtration or similar is needed to capture and kill virus particles; CO2 monitors are needed to verify ventilation in real time; and key metrics applicable to COVID containment such as air changes per hour and standards of filtration should be publically available. 

In the words of President Cassidy in a previous message to the community, “sharing information is also a prevention strategy, because it empowers individuals.” However, the only information that the College has provided to date is that there will be “air purifiers [placed] in spaces on campus where the mechanical ventilation requires a supplement.” All spaces, with the alleged exception of dining halls, have returned to full capacity. It is unclear what type of air purifiers will be provided and whether they are adequate for preventing airborne transmission. 

6. Paid sick leave

Unlimited paid sick leave for all full-time, part-time, and student employees is a necessity. There must never be pressure to work when feeling uncertain, unwell or recuperating, or to choose between work and access to health services such as vaccination or testing. Additionally, a test-to-return policy is a must.

By the Spring 2022 Guidelines, the College is “extending the modifications to our sick pay policy that we introduced last year for faculty and staff until May 31, 2022. Student workers will have 15 hours of sick time for the Spring semester.” The specific modifications in place for Spring 2022 have not been detailed. 

From Fall 2020 communications with Bryn Mawr’s then Chief Communications Officer, students were eligible for up to 70 hours of paid sick time, “no reported employee sick day will be unpaid,” “‘Quarantine payments’ [were] made to those who are asymptomatic and cannot come to work” due to a positive test or exposure, and the College’s benefits for short-term and long-term disability were promised to employees with long COVID. 

It is unclear whether these policies will still be in effect in Spring 2022 and whether they will apply to all full-time, part-time, and student employees.

Part IV: Summary and Call to Action

If the Bi-Co is truly committed to the health and safety of the entire community, it must take immediate action to overhaul its reopening plans for the 2022 Spring semester. If this requires postponing the semester, then it must be done. 

The authors of this article have compiled a list summarizing the current status of Spring 2022 guidelines and proposed action items for administration to implement. Although some may disagree with the details or methods for implementing these action items, we ask that readers keep the broader focus of preserving health and safety in mind.

For individuals who are vaccinated and boosted, the risk of COVID is presently smaller but not eliminated, and some are more vulnerable than others. Long COVID is neither rare nor fully understood—and there’s little indication Omicron has changed in this regard. 

For employees, relaxed mitigation measures on campus means increased chance of infection to bring home to their families, atop the personal health consequences and the disruptions of time off. The campus plan affects everybody, especially those given the least say and least consideration.

For society, the risks are large. This is the conundrum which we repeatedly face: despite lower individual risk, failure to minimize spread can have terrible consequences for the whole. Hospital systems have been repeatedly strained, healthcare workers burned out, and services across a wide range of industries disrupted. High levels of spread make it hard or impossible for at-risk people to avoid, enabling the virus to infect the most vulnerable. Unrestricted transmission can encourage the emergence of new variants. And new surges are far worse when they arrive on top of already high levels of transmission (as Omicron did, atop an autumn Delta wave in the U.S.).

We don’t know how long the boosters will remain effective, and there are early indications that protection from symptomatic infection fades within months (and so may occur during the upcoming semester). We don’t know what form the virus will take in its next surge, nor when that surge will happen. We do know that we have community members who are immunocompromised or have other risk factors which prevent them from vaccinating and receiving booster shots. 

Public health is the commitment to protect all, especially the vulnerable.

Part V: Additional Suggestions for Community Members

We would like to stress that individual responsibility is not the solution, strong policy is. However, in the current absence of administrative action, we have the following suggestions for community members: 

For all campus population:

• Obtain well-fitting, high-quality masks of known origin. N95 masks without exhalation valves are ideal, but KN95 and KF94 masks also offer high protection. Be sure to avoid counterfeits, which are common on Amazon. Shop from reliable sources such as the 3M website or ProjectN95. 
• Make sure you know how to check the fit of your mask, especially if switching to a new model.  
• Maintain a supply of rapid tests. The BinaxNOW COVID‐19 Antigen Self Test at Walmart is one of the cheapest high-quality kits.
• Be safe! Even individually, ‘a tiny wise decision can do exponential good.’ 
• Reach out to your community members. In the face of the College’s facade of normalcy, it is easy to feel like you, not the policies, are irrational for being concerned. But you are not alone.
• Everyone is tired and overwhelmed. Be kind and encouraging to each other, and help out however you can. 

For faculty: 

• Consider your course design. How can you best encourage students to stay home if they have the slightest concern that they might be infected? While the authors of this article are only students and are by no means experts on designing a course, we urge you to discuss ideas with your colleagues.  

For alum, parents, guardians, prospective students, and the wider community:

• Consider sharing your thoughts with Bryn Mawr and Haverford. Your voice and opinions hold power. 

For the sake of all members of the community, we implore the Bi-Co administration to listen and comprehensively reconsider its plans in light of the very real dangers associated with Omicron. 

Once again, please sign here to show your support for safer spring plans. 

To view the full list of signatures, please click here.

Featured image credits: CSL Behring

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