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As those tens of thousands of students returned to residences and full classrooms, university leaders hoped that the measures they put in place would reduce cases of Covid-19 and prevent widespread cases that have shut down. numerous campuses nationwide last spring.
University of Maine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy, who chairs the system’s scientific advisory board, told CNN they had prepared a multi-faceted scientific approach with the help of a team including an epidemiologist, a statistician, microbiologists and virologists.
As the semester began at the end of August, university officials were on the verge of whether it would work.
And yet, across the University of Maine, cases have remained extremely low and seemingly avoided the crush of cases that were gripping the state. As of early October, the campus system of more than 30,000 students and employees had a 1.5% positivity rate, compared to the state’s rising 4.5% positivity rate.
The university told CNN that the system had 52 known cases of Covid-19 among students or employees on Wednesday. Forty-five of them were on the flagship Orono campus. No cases have been recorded on the campuses of the University of Maine at Augusta, the University of Maine at Farmington and the University of Maine at Presque Isle.
So how did they do it?
Ferrini-Mundy attributes this multifrontal system – known as the ‘Swiss cheese’ model – a key defense against Covid-19. Although every preventative measure, or layer of cheese, has holes in it, when stacked, they create an effective defense.
Ferrini-Mundy knows that a large part of this lies not just in the measures the campus has put in place, but also in the willingness to join – a situation that doesn’t always exist in other contexts.
“We have been able to control this through excellent behavior and compliance from our students,” said Ferrini-Mundy.
Lucia Mullen, senior analyst at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said the university’s success shows two things. First, that this model of “Swiss cheese” is the strongest plan to increase activities and social interactions while ensuring that transmission is low.
“It also shows the difference compliance and will power can make in resolving cases,” Mullen said.
While there are always exceptions and settings where the academic model might not work, Mullen says it’s a good example of success in a time of Covid-19 fatigue.
Immunization efforts
One of the main reasons for the success of the university system is the vaccination rate on campus compared to the rest of the state. Maine has a strong full-dose vaccination rate of 74.4%, compared to 88.3% university system-wide.
But, state health officials said in briefings, the Delta variant only needs a small window to wreak havoc. And this is mainly what has happened among the unvaccinated population, according to Maine CDC director Dr. Nirav D. Shah. Some pockets, especially rural areas, do not have vaccination rates comparable to the state average.
“People get it in their everyday life,” Shah said in a video message in response to the rising number of cases. “Maybe because they had coffee with a friend or had dinner with friends at their homes in smaller places where the virus can easily move from person to person. most of the new cases of Covid-19 that we are seeing are occurring among unvaccinated people. “
On University of Maine campuses, a vaccination warrant appears to have helped protect students from community transmission seen in the rest of the state. More and more students were vaccinated at the start of the semester, giving the campus a protective measure, the university said.
As of Tuesday, 97.2% of residential students were in compliance. System-wide, including faculty, staff and off-campus students, that rate is 88.3%, according to Ferrini-Mundy. The mandate will officially come into effect on October 15.
A “robust testing regime”
All students not fully vaccinated or granted an exemption must undergo weekly testing as part of what Ferrini-Mundy calls a “robust testing regime.” The university has an on-campus lab that handles these tests.
“We get quick results and then we have a robust contact tracing program that follows up,” she says.
“We really want to be sure that if there are any asymptomatic cases, maybe in people who have been vaccinated that are not being tested on our campus, we have some back-up systems in place,” Ferrini-Mundy said of the wastewater testing.
Mullen said such tests are an important part of testing unvaccinated students to help cut the virus as soon as possible.
“We can identify (the virus) much earlier,” Mullen said. “So we shut down the potential chain of transmission, because instead of not identifying it until they have had time to infect others, we are identifying it at the source.”
Interior masking
On top of that, Ferrini-Mundy touts its indoor masking policy in all facilities, including classrooms.
“It seems that this university respects the use of the mask indoors so well, it is also a major factor, because we just present less opportunity for the virus to take hold and for people to be exposed.” , Mullen said.
Ferrini-Mundy assigns the message through the system and the faculty help to ensure that the wearing of the mask is not only going on but is going well.
“I just got out of a faculty meeting and some people there were like, ‘I have to remind them every now and then that the mask has to go over the nose, and they do, and the students do. conform to it, “” she said.
Ferrini-Mundy even noted that it is not uncommon to see students masquerading outside, where it is not required.
Double
The university system does not rely on current success, Ferrini-Mundi says, with some additional measures to come.
Due to concerns about sports, conferences and other events moving indoors when winter arrives in Maine, it will be mandatory to show proof of vaccination or a negative test at a gathering of more than 250 people. Some campuses have already done so, but it will become a requirement next week, Ferrini-Mundi said.
And as the vaccination mandate unfolds, the university is reaching out to the minority of people who have neither submitted evidence nor requested exemptions. Ferrini-Mundi said on Tuesday that it was 708 people across the university system.
The university makes phone calls, sends texts, emails, app reminders, holds one-on-one support sessions on Zoom and a Covid-19 hotline to try to bring them all into compliance.
Then the hammer will fall.
“They won’t be able to register for the spring semester if they don’t and arrive on October 31, we will in fact remove them from their classes,” Ferrini-Mundi said.
Create a bubble that ensures good health
Ferrini-Mundi cannot help but congratulate all the partners, including the students, for creating an atmosphere that seems to have isolated them from the prevalent cases at the moment.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention called the university “an excellent partner throughout the Maine pandemic response.”
“Its leaders have always put public health before politics and taken proactive measures to limit the transmission of the virus on campuses and within the wider university system community,” the agency said in a statement.
Ferrini-Mundi believes that student enrollment due to learning difficulties throughout the pandemic is a big reason for the university’s success.
“We had a disruptive year last year – our students weren’t able to be fully here. They were engaged in a variety of hybrid types of distance learning courses which we are very grateful that we were able to do,” a- she declared.
“But the feeling that I come here as I talk to students on campus is that they really want to be back. They want it to work.”
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