Unsettling news in today's Austin American-Statesman. Here's what's key:
"If we have an initial condition of around 200 initial infections, 60% vaccination rates and relatively little mitigation measures, then we would expect exponential growth," said Kaitlyn Johnson, a postdoctoral fellow at UT and a lead author of the report. "And we would expect a high, high percent of the student body, part of it vaccinated and part of it unvaccinated, to become infected."
Of course, we want to have strong mitigation measures. For the first time today, I heard and learned the word, "Multidemic." That's what we're entering into—a pandemic of different variants.
All of us must wear masks and social distance. We should all get the vaccine, too. This should not be an issue of personal liberty, but social responsibility.
You can't kill a virus. It's not a bacteria that you can kill with penicillin or medicine. You can only eliminate its home, meaning keeping our bodies from being hosts to it.
Take care, my friends. Masking up needs to be an expression of love and caring. We owe that to our students, fellow staff and faculty, as well as to each other and our children and grandchildren.
-Angela Valenzuela
Thousands of UT students could get COVID-19 this fall, new report says
Thousands of University of Texas students could become infected with the coronavirus during the fall semester if university leaders don't take any mitigation measures and if students don't change behavior, according to a new report by UT's COVID-19 Modeling Consortium.
That scenario could occur if UT administrators do not implement proactive testing of unvaccinated students twice a week and if students do not wear masks in response to an increased presence of the virus, the report says.
The report, released Wednesday, doesn't go as far as to say that UT needs to require masks.
More:Travis County hits record high for COVID patients in ICU; Texas hospitalizations continue to climb
If unvaccinated students were tested twice a week, the report estimates that the number of infected students in the fall semester under the same vaccination conditions would drop to a range of 900 to 3,900, with an average of 1,700. A vaccination rate of 80% among UT students could lead to an average of 1,500 infected students, even without testing of the unvaccinated.
"If we have an initial condition of around 200 initial infections, 60% vaccination rates and relatively little mitigation measures, then we would expect exponential growth," said Kaitlyn Johnson, a postdoctoral fellow at UT and a lead author of the report. "And we would expect a high, high percent of the student body, part of it vaccinated and part of it unvaccinated, to become infected."
Details of UT modeling consortium's report
The consortium, a network of researchers and health professionals, made the model of COVID-19 transmission to project the health and economic costs associated with UT’s reopening. The models do not predict any viral, policy or behavioral changes and assume that vaccine coverage, vaccine efficacy and transmission rates remain constant through the end of the semester.
Details of UT modeling consortium's report
The consortium, a network of researchers and health professionals, made the model of COVID-19 transmission to project the health and economic costs associated with UT’s reopening. The models do not predict any viral, policy or behavioral changes and assume that vaccine coverage, vaccine efficacy and transmission rates remain constant through the end of the semester.More:Texas now has the fewest ICU beds available it's had during the entire COVID-19 pandemic
"These findings highlight the need for continued mitigation measures such as testing prior to returning to campus, wearing of face masks, social distancing, frequent testing throughout the semester, self-isolation when symptomatic and other risk-reduction measures as UT reopens during a time of high levels of community spread," the report said.
The report says that, if vaccination rates remain at about 60%, proactive testing for COVID-19 should be offered to students at least two times per week, or about 20,000 tests a week, to provide a 95% guarantee that symptomatic infections will not exceed the "very high risk threshold."
Exclusively symptomatic testing would be enough to control the spread if 80% of students were vaccinated, the report says. The report defines a very high transmission threshold as 140 symptomatic cases per 100,000 people over seven days.
"Our projections suggest that proactive testing of unvaccinated students can help to suppress transmission and be cost saving overall, particularly if vaccination levels remain relatively low. However, increasing vaccination coverage among students is likely the most effective means of reducing the burden of COVID-19 and keeping costs low," the report said.
COVID-19 testing required for first day at University of Texas
UT will be requiring all students to be tested before the first day of classes on Aug. 25, but UT spokesperson Eliska Padilla said the university does not plan to require regular testing of students after the first day. Gov. Greg Abbott has prohibited agencies that receive state funding from requiring vaccinations.
More:Austin ISD to mandate masks in defiance of Gov. Greg Abbott
"The university continues to encourage and offer vaccination as the best tool to contain the spread of COVID-19, has made living in a campus residence hall conditional upon receiving a negative COVID-19 test prior to move-in, is asking all students returning to campus to get tested before classes start, as well as continues proactive community testing for people with no symptoms," Padilla said.
The report estimates the prevalence of COVID-19 among UT students in Austin during the first day of classes will be between 0.38% and 0.47%, or a range of 187 and 236 UT students in Austin infected with COVID-19
The current modeling assumes that 50,000 students will be on campus in about two weeks. The vaccination estimates were based on vaccination rates reported for 16- to 49-year-olds in Texas and for people older than 18 in the home counties of students from outside of Texas.
The report assumes nearly all students will isolate after a positive COVID-19 test result, and that 50% of unvaccinated students would be willing to participate in proactive testing while acknowledging that percentage might not be attainable.
More COVID-19 cases projected this fall
Last year, a similar report by the consortium before the beginning of the fall 2020 semester said between 82 and 183 students could arrive infected with COVID-19 during the first week of fall classes. The report assumed that 12,000 students were already in Austin and 5,000 to 15,000 students would arrive in Austin before the first day of class in fall 2020. At the time, COVID-19 vaccinations were not available.
It's impossible to say how many students arrived infected at the start of classes last year because UT did not require all students to be tested when they arrived.
More:UT to require COVID-19 tests for all students prior to first day of school
Johnson said the higher numbers for fall 2021 are due to significantly more students on campus and surging COVID-19 cases.
Assuming only symptomatic cases are detected and that about 60% of students are vaccinated, the model projects a peak occupancy of 13 to 45 students living in UT residence halls requiring an isolation room in a single day. That range could decrease to a peak of 2 and 11 students in dorms requiring isolation if 80% of them were vaccinated, the report states.
These estimates do not account for any additional cases identified through contact tracing or proactive testing, which could increase the number of students requiring isolation.
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