Kansas college town mayor braces as students return, COVID-19 spikes on other campuses
Classes began again Monday at Kansas State University.
While Manhattan Mayor Usha Reddi said she notices the excitement in the air as the students return, she knows the threat of coronavirus is also present.
As Missouri and Kansas colleges welcome students back to campus, other states have already seen the consequences of bringing a large group of students together.
After just one week of meeting in person, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill moved classes online after more than 130 students tested positive for the coronavirus. Videos have surfaced of UNC-Chapel Hill students gathering in large groups without social distancing and without wearing masks.
A different video, from Saturday, shows hundreds of people partying at an apartment complex off the University of North Georgia’s campus. Few coronavirus prevention measures were in place, prompting a university spokesperson to express disappointment in the students’ behavior.
At Iowa State University, more than 140 students have tested positive since moving into university housing, according to the Ames Tribune.
Reddi said while K-State has taken many precautions such as mask and social distancing requirements to protect its students, faculty and staff, such rules are easier to manage on campus than off.
Off the university grounds, there are yard and house parties.
“The weather is nice, our numbers are kind of low right now and so this gives us a false sense of reality that everything is OK,” Reddi said.
She recently saw a group of young people sitting in lawn chairs that were spaced out. They only removed their masks to take a swig of beer. This was good.
But she’s also noticed large groups in close proximity without masks. Not so good.
“I guess we’ll know in another week or two if we have a spike in our positive cases,” she said Monday in an interview with The Star. “I would assume we will. I just hope it’s not so much that K-12 has to make decisions about shutting down and going online.”
If the percentage of positive coronavirus cases goes above that 10%, the schools would transition to all remote learning, Riley County Health Department Director Julie Gibbs told the Manhattan Mercury last week.
The coronavirus can spread even among small groups, Reddi said, giving the example of a handful of K-State football players who tested positive after playing video games together over the summer.
“It could be 50 people, it could just be four people,” she said. “It’s who you are with, and if you’re wearing your face mask and you’re socially distancing, we can definitely reduce the spread. But the problem we’re having is people are not wearing their face masks or socially distancing ... We can actually have fun and enjoy ourselves if we take a few simple precautions.”
As other schools in the region, like the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri, prepare for their fall semesters to begin next week, Reddi offered a piece of advice to her counterparts in city leadership: Put a mask on and go for a walk.
“Everything looks great on paper if you have a face mask ordinance and such, but unless you’re walking the streets or your bar district or your business district, or in your neighborhoods, you won’t really know,” she said.
By doing this, she’s observed which businesses are working hard at adhering to health guidelines and which aren’t. She’s noticed where students are gathering in close quarters and where they’re maintaining social distance.
This, she said, will help inform her future decisions about messaging and whether more people are needed to enforce the current city ordinance, which includes a mask mandate.
She said discussions around next steps are ongoing, and require the help of university, city and school district leaders to be effective.
“Ultimately if we don’t do it right, things will shut down, and I don’t think we’re in a position to handle that piece of it,” she said.
In the meantime, she’s going to continue planning for the worst and hoping for the best.
This story was originally published August 17, 2020 at 5:55 PM with the headline "Kansas college town mayor braces as students return, COVID-19 spikes on other campuses."
