Coronavirus (COVID-19): If you are a college student.... Part 1


If you are a college student, how does this virus endanger you?
The latest interpretations of the data by the media tell us that COVID-19 is not going to kill you and not many of you are going to get it.

In the United States, over 85% of the deaths due to COVID-19 are among individuals over 50 years old, and in Washington State (the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak), 2% of verified cases are among individuals between 0 and 19 years old and 7% are among those 20-29 years old.  In the nation hardest hit by COVID-19 to date (China), the death rate among those aged 10-29 is 0.2%.  The death rate represents how many individuals who become infected with COVID-19 die from the virus. 

For comparison sake, overall deaths related to the flu run between 20,000 and 60,000 in the United States for each of the past ten years.  Approximately 10% of the U.S. population of 330 million gets the flu every year, which amounts to an annual death rate of between 0.06 and 0.18% among those who get the flu. 

So, while yes, the COVID-19 virus is not likely to kill you, it's still more likely than the flu to be fatal, because if we do nothing about the spread of COVID-19, many more people will be infected, and a higher percentage of the overall population, even among college students, will die.   

And as for being unlikely to get it -- if we do nothing to control the spread of COVID-19, there is a point at which enough people develop immunity that the spread of the disease slows or stops altogether.   This point is called the herd immunity threshold and for the 2002-2004 outbreak of the SARS virus (also a coronavirus), the herd immunity threshold was between 50% and 90%.  For purposes of understanding the impact of COVID-19, the herd immunity threshold is estimated to be 60%.  This means that regardless of the severity of symptoms, about 60% of all adults are likely to get the disease before herd immunity sets in and curtails further infection.

Death is not the only thing to fear from COVID-19.   In all but the mildest of symptoms, COVID-19 causes a misery of respiratory and flu-like symptoms that last for seven days or more. Early reports of COVID-19 experiences among survivors of the virus indicate that the flu is a walk in the park compared to COVID-19. And among those who survive the virus, permanent lung damage is also a very real possibility -- data for which are not yet available because COVID-19 is simply too new and not fully understood.

If you are a college student, how does it endanger your parents?
Using China's data as a guide, the death rate for those aged 40-49 is 0.4% and those aged 50-59 is 1.3%.  On a typical large college campus (50,000 students), that means if we did nothing to control the spread of COVID-19 and 60% of the population gets the virus, at least 240 students would be without mom or dad by the end of the year. 

If you are a college student, how does it endanger your grandparents?
Again using China's data as a guide, the death rate for those aged 60-69 is 3.6%, for those aged 70-79 is 8%, and for those over 80 years old, the death rate is 14.8%.  On a typical large college campus (50,000 students), that means if we did nothing to control the spread of COVID-19, about 10,000 grandparents would pass away by the end of the year.

If you are a college student, how does it endanger your professors?
If the average student:faculty ratio on college campuses is 16:1 and we estimate a third of faculty are over 50, then about 10 professors will die within the year on your campus (based on an enrollment of 50,000 students) if we do nothing to control the spread of COVID-19.

And COVID-19 doesn't care whether the professors it kills are good teachers or bad teachers.

How does it hurt those that survive COVID-19?
If we fail to control its spread, COVID-19 has the power to disable the U.S. healthcare system (the unmanaged spread of coronavirus is more rapid than the flu which results in a spike in demand for healthcare as has been seen in Italy), thus compromising care for a wide range of injuries and diseases, leading to even more permanent and widespread damage to public and individual health as well as additional deaths.   If we fail to control the spread, the economic fallout could lead the U.S. into a severe recession, as bad or worse than the Great Recession of 2008.

A severe recession would dramatically reduce career fairs, jobs for new college graduates, and early career income, and would create mounds of debt that can cripple your quality of life for a decade or more.

If you are a college student, what can you do?
Wash your hands often, stay home when you are sick, cover your nose and mouth when you cough or sneeze with a tissue (or use the inside of your elbow), and socially distance yourself by reducing your in-person interactions as much as possible and remaining a minimum of six feet away from others at all times.  Regularly review the CDC guidelines for reducing risk.  

As your classes shift to on-line learning, you can be of tremendous help by coming to on-line class sessions on time, being patient with the whole process of converting to on-line learning, making an extra effort to reach out to your classmates over on-line channels of communication, communicating with your professors to negotiate what you need to learn, and maintaining a positive, can-do attitude about your education in the middle of this worldwide public health crisis. 

Is there any good news?
As more and more data are collected, it's possible that fatality/death rates will fall.   A vaccine is likely within 18 months. Treatments for serious cases of COVID-19 are also being studied.  Science is a powerful tool and resource to reduce the COVID-19 pandemic and is being exercised and wielded by scientists and researchers around the world and around the clock to understand more deeply, test more extensively, and mitigate this crisis better every day. 

Why did we use Washington State and China data for this blog?
China was the world's epicenter of the crisis and has had over 80,000 cases of COVID-19 to date, providing a statistically important dataset for interpretation. Washington State is the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak of COVID-19.

Update (March 19, 2020):
The CDC has learned that COVID-19 poses a greater risk to young people of college age than was previously thought:  see link.  

Let's stay safe and beat this thing... 

About the Author:
Denise Wilson is managing director for Coming Alongside Environmental Services and also serves as a faculty member in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington.  











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