As COVID-19 surges and health care system stretches to limit, college students told to stay home after Thanksgiving

University students across the state are preparing to head home for Thanksgiving break, and an increasing number of schools are telling them to stay home for the rest of the semester and through the holidays.

On Thursday, with the state struggling through the worst COVID-19 stretch since the pandemic began, three University of Wisconsin System schools — Eau Claire, Stout and River Falls — decided to go virtual through the holidays. Students will complete final exams remotely and return to in-person instruction in the spring semester.

UW-Madison and a host of private universities — including Marquette, Carroll and St. Norbert — had already made that decision.

The calendar change at the three northwestern schools followed the news that hospitals at the Mayo Clinic Health System in that area have no more available beds. And it comes after Gov. Tony Evers implored Wisconsinites not to gather with people outside their household over the holiday. 

The state Department of Health Services on Thursday reported a record 7,497 new cases and 58 deaths, bringing the death toll to 2,515. The average number of new daily cases over the last seven days reached a new high of 6,209.

"COVID-19 is everywhere in our state. It's bad everywhere, and it's getting worse everywhere," DHS Deputy Secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk said Thursday in a news conference.

As of Wednesday, there were 2,102 people hospitalized with the virus, including 441 patients in intensive care units. Both numbers were all-time highs. COVID-19 hospitalizations have notched new record highs every day of November.

The average positivity rate also hit a new high of 36.4% Thursday. The measure looks at first-time positive tests over the last seven days.

Some schools still coming back

After a burst of outbreaks associated with students moving onto campuses for the fall semesters, most universities have kept a lid on the spread of the disease. In some Wisconsin communities — especially those where residents routinely ignore safe practices — the schools have become virtual islands, with students limiting their off-campus contact.

The concern among university leaders is that students will head home, expose themselves to people they haven't been around for weeks or months, and then return to campus, potentially bringing the virus with them.

Some schools, like UW-Milwaukee and Milwaukee School of Engineering, still plan to bring students back after Thanksgiving.

In a call with Milwaukee media Thursday, Ben Weston, director of medical services at the Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Management, called on university students not to take the risk of contracting or spreading the virus lightly.

"Our trends in Wisconsin are, frankly, terrible, and the last thing that any student wants to do is unknowingly bring disease back to their family or their loved ones who are not as young and are not as healthy as they are," Weston said. "You want to make sure that everyone who can sit around the Thanksgiving dinner table will be able to also sit around it next year."

In an ideal world, Weston said, students would quarantine for two weeks once home. He recommended that those who cannot start to limit their interaction with people this week — avoiding social events where they could catch the virus and unwittingly bring it home. He also recommended students drive home alone if possible and get tested upon arrival.

Tommy Thompson, interim president of the UW System, sent a memo to all campus chancellors Wednesday directing them to test every student for COVID-19 before they leave campus this month and requiring that students present two negative tests before they return to classrooms after break.

Campuses need to make plans based on their specific student population, Thompson acknowledged, but he called on campuses to be more aggressive. 

"If these standards cannot be met, students should not be allowed to return to any classroom or congregated setting following the Thanksgiving break," he wrote.

The directive may be easier for some schools to implement than others, despite increases in testing capacity across the UW System.

Stephen Schmid, special assistant to the provost at UWM, said Thursday morning the university was seeking clarification on the requirement and did not have a timeline for when it will implement Thompson's directive. UWM's break is Nov. 25-29, meaning the university would need to test each student three times in just a few days.

Schmid noted UWM has a large local and commuter population, so students have been traveling between home and campus more regularly than other campuses may experience. 

Local cases on the rise

The ongoing surge in COVID-19 cases has started to be reflected in several campuses' case counts in the weeks leading up to the break.

UWM reported its highest weekly count of cases since the semester began in the week of Nov. 2, with 179 students testing positive. As of Thursday, 87 more positive cases have been reported. Around 6% of the university's rapid tests have come back positive over the past two weeks.

Testing at UWM is required at least every two weeks for the roughly 1,700 students who live in dorms there. It is available, but not required, for students who commute or live off campus. Schmid, who manages UWM's COVID-19 data, said the majority of the new cases are among off-campus students.

"In part we're reflecting what we're seeing in the community. Writ large, our numbers are going up as the community numbers are going up," Schmid said.  "As far as what we're seeing with our residential students, our numbers are still very small."

Marquette University is continuing to grapple with a surge in COVID-19 cases after Halloween weekend, which officials link to off-campus parties and gatherings. The university has seen multiple record COVID-19 case counts in the last week and a 24% seven-day positivity rate as of Tuesday.

A Marquette spokesman declined an interview request to discuss the school's case count and Thanksgiving break plans. It is unclear how many students will be tested before or after break; Marquette's testing has been limited to students who exhibit COVID-19 symptoms and their close contacts.

The virus is also spreading among some smaller-area student bodies.

MSOE has seen two weeks with more than 30 new COVID-19 cases, with most of the spread off campus, said Eric Baumgartner, the school's executive vice president of academics. 

"Yes, we had a slight uptick in cases, but in the grand scheme of things it's still small in relation to our student body population and our positivity rate remains small," Baumgartner said.

The president of Concordia University in Mequon urged staff and students to take added precautions as the number of active cases hit 66 Wednesday. 

Carroll University in Waukesha is in its second week of limited campus activities, with 50 active cases among students and six among staff as of Monday.

Carroll has set aside 500 tests for students who want to be tested before moving out for the extended holiday break, in addition to the standard testing schedule, in which a random 10% to 15% portion of the 3,000 undergraduate students are tested each week.

"We do have more community spread right now; we do have higher cases," university President Cindy Gnadinger said. "We hope that it's not as bad that third week of January when they return as it is right now."

Students will have to present a negative test result before they start classes in the spring. At that point, Carroll — alongside UW-Madison and many others — will have one less hurdle to deal with, as spring break is canceled.

Sophia Carson of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Contact Devi Shastri at 414-224-2193 or DAShastri@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @DeviShastri.