Just get used to it

Months and months of failing to stop the virus, making half-committed efforts to stop it while also undermining those half-committed efforts, refusing to support people through the hardships imposed by the half-committed efforts... eventually the only conclusion to draw is "Just get used to it" was the plan all along.  

Well, we're doing that now. 

Earlier this week, Tulane University professor Carola Wenk got the email she had been dreading: Less than two weeks after the university's ambitious return to in-person instruction, a student in her undergraduate math class had tested positive for coronavirus.

"I just felt heartbroken," Wenk said. "I was just like, "Oh my God, that student caught it now because they came to Tulane."

Such emails have become more common as coronavirus cases have begun to tick up at Tulane, in what some say is the predictable result of the school's decision to reopen campus this fall to 13,600 students, including 4,000 who live in dorms. The majority of students are attending classes in person.

Since July 27, Tulane has reported 155 positive results from its aggressive screening program, which included 14,521 tests. That represents a 1.06 percent testing positivity rate on campus, officials said in a recent update on the school's website.

"Some say" it was a predictable result of calling everyone back to campus. But the university isn't going to take responsibility for that.  They're making a bold decision, after all.  It's a dangerous new world out there. Folks are just gonna have to get used to it. 

Besides, if anything goes wrong, we can always just blame the victims. 

The school will also continue to crack down on students who host gatherings of more than 15 people at a time, currently prohibited on campus.

"We have had to suspend some for violations and will continue to do so if necessary," Strecker said, adding that the "vast majority" of students abide by the rules.

University administrators ought to have a pretty good idea of how students are going to behave.  Setting them up as scapegoats through rules they know are going to be broken shouldn't absolve anyone of the blame for the decision to create the dangerous situation in the first place. 

But the people making the decisions have to weigh the perceived special value of an exclusive private educational experience against these inconvenient little threats to public health so you can see the dilemma.