Covid-19 Deaths Rose In US College Towns When Students Returned

The New York Times reports:As coronavirus deaths soar across the country, deaths in communities that are home to colleges have risen faster than the rest of the nation, a New York Times analysis of 203 counties where students compose at least 10 percent of the population has found... [S]ince the end of August, deaths from the coronavirus have doubled in counties with a large college population, compared with a 58 percent increase in the rest of the nation. Few of the victims were college students, but rather older people and others living and working in the community. Health officials and family members of some people who died in such counties described large surges of cases involving students followed by subsequent infections and deaths in the wider community. "When the rate of transmission in the surrounding community is high and increasing," said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, "you are going to see more deaths...." [I]n September and October, when deaths were well below earlier peaks and fairly steady, they were already rising in many college communities. That trend highlighted a central fear of health officials - that young adults with limited symptoms may unwittingly transmit the virus, increasing the possibility it would ultimately spread to someone more vulnerable... "All it really takes is one cavalier interaction," said Tali Elfassy, an epidemiologist at the University of Miami.

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