Penn State faculty group’s COVID-19 simulation projects 2,500 student cases and 2 deaths
A Penn State group has renewed calls for increased COVID-19 testing after a simulation projected, conservatively, that about 2,500 University Park students could be infected by the coronavirus in the fall.
The Coalition for a Just University (CJU/PSU), comprised mainly of concerned faculty, released the results over the weekend after nearly two months of work. The scenarios were primarily based on published models by Yale-Harvard scientists that helped develop testing plans for Boston-area universities.
According to one specific scenario in the model, which accounts for optimistic test turnaround times and a lower-than-average transmission rate, Penn State students could see 1,800 asymptomatic cases, meaning no outward signs of infection, in addition to about 700 symptomatic cases before Thanksgiving break starts Nov. 21. The scenario also projects two student deaths.
As of noon Monday, Centre County had experienced just 393 total cases since its first positive test result March 20.
“It’s very concerning, especially considering that at Thanksgiving many of these students will leave, return to their communities and seed new infections,” said Sarah Townsend, a Penn State professor and CJU/PSU organizer. “And, once again, the simulation doesn’t include faculty, staff and the broader community, so the cumulative effect is going to be far greater.”
The projections were given to Penn State on Monday morning, in the form of a PowerPoint presentation and a 16-page technical report. In the afternoon, a Penn State spokesperson dismissed the reports as “flawed,” saying the model hadn’t accounted for several variables while noting that the coalition is not a neutral party.
“This group has advocated against any reopening of campuses,” spokesperson Lisa Powers said in a written statement. “This latest, anonymous communication in their advocacy effort fails to properly account for critical factors like contact tracing and adaptive surveillance approaches. The university has been transparent about its plans, which have been developed with faculty scientists who are health and supply chain experts to significantly exceed the Pennsylvania governor’s guidance for return to campuses.
“The university’s plans include a layered approach to symptomatic and asymptomatic testing, partnerships with multiple testing partners, contact tracing, provision of quarantine and isolation space, continuous management through a COVID Operations Control Center led by a qualified and experienced director, and more.”
After this story was published, Powers added: “The university has developed a model that allows us to dynamically predict, monitor and take necessary mitigation steps up to, and if needed, a return to remote instruction, as was stated in the town hall. This requires constant assimilation and review of the many data sources, which were described by Dr. Barron and Dr. Kevin Black.”
One Penn State professor, a co-author of the reports, spoke to the Centre Daily Times on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution by the university. Although they acknowledged that uncertainties remain and not all variables were accounted for — with class set to start in a week, time and depth were limited — they emphasized that the original model was considered trustworthy and valuable enough to run in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
They also took exception to Penn State’s claim of transparency, noting that the university has not publicly released its own simulations, which prompted CJU/PSU to run and release theirs.
Penn State declined to provide the results from its own models when asked by the CDT.
“An academic institution should show scientific evidence that impacts the life and death of students, faculty and staff — or it’s not a responsible way of operating,” the professor said. “It’s not a corporation, but it’s being run like a corporation.”
The CDT also sent the reports to the state Department of Health and the governor’s office, asking whether they altered the state’s outlook. A DOH spokesperson responded, saying the department hadn’t had enough time to thoroughly review the reports and adding that “the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Wolf Administration are committed to working with schools at all levels to ensure that education can continue during these unprecedented times.”
What’s the solution?
Townsend summed it up succinctly: More testing.
The goal of releasing the reports and projections on Penn State’s COVID-19 cases wasn’t just to alarm the community. It was to provide potential solutions, and increased testing was the most obvious.
As it stands, Penn State plans to randomly test about 1% of students, faculty and staff on a daily basis, regardless of symptoms. If the university were to increase that to 10%, CJU/PSU’s simulation estimates there would be fewer than 200 student COVID-19 cases over the next 90 days.
Although testing policies vary wildly from one Big Ten university to another, several schools have adopted even more stringent policies. Illinois told the CDT it plans to test all students twice weekly, for example.
“I’d like to see Penn State implement a testing plan that’s on par with the one at Illinois,” Townsend said. “All of the experts say widespread, frequent testing is absolutely essential to preventing outbreaks, and Penn State’s current plan does not constitute widespread, frequent testing.”
Another potential solution was following the lead of Champaign and Urbana and temporarily limiting bars and restaurants to takeout and delivery for three weeks. (Although the State College Borough Council has not discussed that possibility, it did implement an ordinance that enforces mask-wearing and limits indoor and outdoor gatherings.)
What’s next?
Penn State students began moving in Monday, and class officially starts Aug. 24.
For universities that have been through reopening, it hasn’t exactly gone smoothly. Notre Dame reopened Aug. 3 after testing all students before arrival — Penn State is testing about 30% — and there was just one confirmed case on campus the first five days.
Now, as of Monday, Notre Dame is up to 58 cases, most of which can be traced back to a single off-campus party. North Carolina, which is one week into the semester, added 135 new cases within the past week, and announced Monday that it would fully transition to online classes by Wednesday.
Laurence Steinberg, a renowned professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia, wrote a June column in The New York Times to explain why he’s teaching remotely. The simple reason, he said, is because colleges’ reopening plans “are so unrealistically optimistic that they border on delusional and could lead to outbreaks of COVID-19 among students, faculty and staff.”
CJU/PSU was formed over the summer in response to Penn State’s reopening plan. The organizers wrote an open letter, signed by about one-third of the university’s full-time instructors, that expressed concerns over reopening and made a list of demands.
The first bullet point involved testing.
“It’s hard for me to see how we’re going to finish out the semester on campus,” Townsend said Monday, shortly before the University of North Carolina’s announcement. “How do you bring thousands of young people together and then tell them, ‘Oh we want this to be your typical college experience — except that you have to follow all of these strict rules and safety protocols’?
“It’s creating an impossible situation.”
This story was originally published August 17, 2020 at 5:56 PM.
