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University of Michigan students are now subject to a stay-at-home order from the college administration after a recommendation from its county health department due to a cluster of cases of a new variants of COVID-19, referred to as B.1.1.7.
The new variant, first seen in Britain, has now been reported in 32 states and 467 people. Experts have suggested that B.1.1.7 transmits more efficiently and faster than previously seen types of the novel coronavirus. UK experts have also suggested that the variant could be deadlier.
As of January 27, 14 people in Michigan had been infected with variant B.1.1.7.
In the United States, B.1.1.7 has not resulted in a major revision of health protocols. Overall, US colleges are still planning to bring in more students than last semester and to hold more in-person classes.
But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that B.1.1.7 could be the dominant strain causing cases in the United States by March. The University of Michigan and its cluster approach may be an indicator of things to come for American institutions.
The goal of the Michigan stay-at-home command is not so much to contain the variant fully as it is to limit the spread and buy college and county time, said Rick Fitzgerald, Michigan spokesman.
“It was designed to give us time to do some of the additional testing to give us a clearer picture of this variant in our community,” he said. The university is currently doing weekly tests and then taking each positive test and sequencing it to find out its strain.
The process is taking longer for the University and the Washtenaw County Health Department. While one of the Michigan cases was linked to a trip to Britain, Health Department spokesperson Susan Ringler-Cerniglia said, not all variant cases have been linked to this individual.
“How all of these cases are related or not is what we are trying to figure out,” she said.
The department’s first level of investigation is for close contacts – people who have spent 15 minutes or more within six feet of an infected person – but the department is now looking for “casual contacts,” who may have had contact. more accidental with infected person, trying to find an undetected spread. As the university and county scramble to find what already exists in the community, they must limit the spread.
The Michigan home order is not a full quarantine. Students are allowed to go out for food, exercise, work and – especially – in-person lessons.
The university did not observe any transmission of face-to-face classes in the fall, due to proper protocols such as wearing masks and social distancing, Fitzgerald said, so keeping classes face-to-face should be safe.
The university has already seriously limited the number of in-person classes it runs, he said. About 80 to 90 percent of classes are online this semester, and the campus has only about 2,600 students on campus (compared to the usual 10,000). The courses currently offered in person are those that university administrators and faculty deem essential, Fitzgerald said, such as those related to licensing requirements.
For now, the university and the county are focused on reducing social gatherings between students who do not live together, which they see as the main source of the spread. The stay-at-home order will last until February 7, when it can be extended.
“Stricter actions may be needed if this epidemic continues to grow and if other groups of variants are identified,” the health department said in a statement.
After the first cases were discovered in Michigan’s athletics department, the university suspended all athletic activity on Jan.23 and told athletes to go into quarantine.
Currently, the Washtenaw County Health Department has not seen any other cases of variant B.1.1.7 at other colleges in the area, Ringler-Cerniglia said. Michigan State University is also currently under a stay-at-home order, but officials said no cases of B.1.1.7 have been observed.
According to the CDC, states with the most cases of the B.1.1.7 variant include California, Florida, and New York. Broward and Miami-Dade counties in Florida, home to Fort Lauderdale and Miami, respectively, were the sites of most cases in that state. Universities in these regions did not report any variant cases.
“We are monitoring the situation, but we have not made any changes to our preventive measures,” a spokesperson for Florida International University said via email.
It remains to be seen whether more cases will arise in US colleges and universities. Typical COVID-19 tests don’t assess what strain a person might be infected with, and health departments can only find variants when they look for them. While the CDC has stepped up its national SARS-CoV-2 strain surveillance program to process 750 samples per week, the United States currently ranks 43rd in the world in sequencing to verify genetic changes in the virus.
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