The White House’s coronavirus response coordinator Friday issued a warning to students and to the general public in Massachusetts: Don't let down your guard against COVID-19.
Speaking to reporters outside MIT and Harvard’s Broad Institute in Cambridge after a meeting with college presidents, Dr. Deborah Birx said the northeast and its colleges have some of the most “militant” COVID testing procedures in the country, but she also emphasized the importance of wearing masks and maintaining social distancing during the upcoming holidays.
“We see that from the high holy days,” Birx said. “People are just yearning to be together and believe that if I know you or if you're my family member, you couldn't have asymptomatic COVID, and we now learn that you could.”
Birx said coronavirus positivity rates are low at New England colleges because they are testing so aggressively and can stop potential outbreaks before they occur. Still, she warned, schools should be ready to go fully remote, if necessary.
“When you go from a 0.9 to 1.1, or you go from a 0.9 to a 1.3, that's your early warning sign,” she explained. “It's not when you go from 4 to 4.5. It’s the delta. It's the trend.”
With winter approaching, Birx said now is the time to increase testing both on and off campus.
“That’s how we’ll find the asymptomatic spread,” she said.
Birx said she thinks college students — because of their low test positivity rate — know what behaviors are critical to slowing the spread of the virus.
“I'm hoping they bring that same discipline and teach their parents and grandparents how to be safe yet socially engaged and learning and being with one another, but having physical distancing and masks.”
Birx recommended colleges prepare diligent re-entry plans for when students come back from the holidays.
She worries the public is suffering from “COVID fatigue,” and urged cities, towns and campuses to provide clear public health guidance, including mask mandates.
Since the start of the pandemic in March, some college leaders have said the Trump administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have failed to provide specific guidelines and left too much to individual states, cities and schools.
Asked to respond to that criticism, Birx said she’s confident students at Massachusetts colleges won’t spread coronavirus when they head home for the holidays because of their low positivity rates. She also said she wishes the federal government could replicate regular testing across the country.
