"The Missing Hispanic Students: Higher ed's future, and the economy, depends on their coming back to college," by Sarah Brown

The pandemic has reversed, at least for now, a pattern of higher undergraduate enrollment among Hispanics/Latinas/os in our nation's community colleges and universities. This is consequential to higher education given their growing share of the pool of prospective students. Though not occurring everywhere, enrollment drops for this demographic are evident as referenced herein:

"For colleges — especially community colleges, which enroll more than half of Hispanic students — any enrollment drop is an alarming, immediate problem. Much of the country is staring down a “demographic cliff,” as the number of high-school graduates is projected to decline after 2025, leading to fewer prospective college students. In most states, Hispanic students are a rapidly growing share of that pool."

This warning of a demographic cliff should sound alarm bells throughout the country. Clearly, greater financial aid is a remedy as this reversal in the trend is consequential, in particular, to the students themselves and to the economy, as a whole.

-Angela Valenzuela

Retrieve online HERE.

By Sarah Brown | Feb. 11, 2022 | CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The numbers already didn’t look good: Doña Ana Community College had lost nearly one fifth of its enrollment from the spring of 2020 to the spring of 2021. About three-fourths of the roughly 5,300 students at the two-year institution in southern New Mexico are Hispanic.

Then Monica Torres, the college’s president, had an institutional-research official look at the data more closely. Doña Ana was down 40 percent among first-generation students, low-income students, and student parents — the college’s most vulnerable populations.

“That’s like hair-on-fire time,” says Torres, who became president in 2018. This spring, the college’s total enrollment is down another 5 percent.

Torres grew up in Las Cruces, N.M., a city of 100,000 people, about 40 miles from the Mexican border; Doña Ana’s six campuses are spread throughout the city and county.

“You’re not just talking about individual students and the opportunities they’re losing,” Torres says, “but you’re talking about the impact on the community.” If local residents don’t go to college, research suggests that they’ll be worse off financially. They won’t be qualified for many of the region’s future jobs — in emerging fields like solar energy and defense manufacturing, and high-demand fields like home health care and education. The economy will struggle.

Colleges’ undergraduate enrollment is down across the board, at every type of institution, among nearly all demographic groups. But the number of Hispanic students leaving college after a year or two, or deciding not to start, is especially concerning.

After two decades during which Hispanic students have been the fastest-growing demographic group enrolling in college, the Covid-19 pandemic has threatened that progress — among a population with the lowest degree attainment of any racial or ethnic group in the United States. Hispanic undergraduate enrollment fell 7 percent from 2019 to 2021, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Percentage-wise, Black and Native American students saw larger enrollment decreases than their Hispanic peers during that time, wrote Nathan D. Grawe, a Carleton College economist and enrollment expert, in a recent Chronicle essay. But the change in the trend among Hispanic students was most striking — because their attendance had been increasing pre-pandemic. Black students’ college-going rates dipped following the 2008 recession and never recovered, Grawe noted: “Temporary disturbances can produce lasting effects.”

For colleges — especially community colleges, which enroll more than half of Hispanic students — any enrollment drop is an alarming, immediate problem. Much of the country is staring down a “demographic cliff,” as the number of high-school graduates is projected to decline after 2025, leading to fewer prospective college students. In most states, Hispanic students are a rapidly growing share of that pool.

While colleges have stemmed the bleeding by using federal Covid relief funding for student support, that money will soon run out.

As the pandemic enters its third year, colleges and community leaders nationwide are on a quest to make sure Hispanic students come back and stay on track. They’re clear about the stakes: The future of higher ed, and the nation’s economic success, depends on it.

What could be more sad? The extent of parental deaths due to the pandemic is a staggering number and growing. I quote from this piece herein: 

"Theirs is no isolated struggle. More than 140,000 children in the U.S. — including 14,000 in Texas — lost at least one parent or caregiver to COVID-19 during the first 14 months of the pandemic, according to a recent study in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics." 

This will be a societal problem far into the future, no doubt, disproportionately impacting children of color. I'm sure there are various places to make a donation to help an orphaned child. 

What I readily tracked down was the Child Mind Institute that provides research-based, crisis support to young children.

-Angela Valenzuela

‘He isn’t going to come back’ — Across Texas, COVID orphans struggle with loss of one or both parents 

Rebecca Carballo, Megan Rodriguez, Staff writers

Dec. 2, 2021Updated: Dec. 3, 2021 9:15 a.m.

Six-year-old Ayden Villegas looks at pictures of his father, Robert Villegas, who died in January after a three-week battle with COVID-19. Villegas’ widow, Valerie, a hospice nurse, is raising their children — five boys and a daughter — on her own.

Mark Mulligan /Staff photographer

Rozie Salinas’ Christmas tree is covered in dinosaur ornaments, at the request of her 6-year-old grandson.

Decking the halls of her northeast San Antonio home with the colorful figurines is a way for Salinas to make happy memories for Raiden Gonzalez. She adopted the boy after his parents died last year from complications of COVID-19.

Since then, Salinas and Raiden have been through a lot: memorial services for his parents, a move to a new home and two birthdays for Raiden, who was just 4 when his parents died. Along the way, the boy and his grandmother both contracted the coronavirus themselves.

The holidays are especially difficult.

“He was crying, asking how come he can’t have his parents back and that he just wished that they were adults again and not angels,” said Salinas, 48. “It’s just kind of hard to explain to him why he can’t have them back.”

Theirs is no isolated struggle. More than 140,000 children in the U.S. — including 14,000 in Texas — lost at least one parent or caregiver to COVID-19 during the first 14 months of the pandemic, according to a recent study in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The long-term repercussions are expected to be profound. Single-parent households are more likely to slip into poverty and to suffer from unstable housing, low educational attainment and mental health problems. Orphaned children suffer elevated rates of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Pediatrics study described the loss of parents or other family caregivers as one of the “severe unrecognized consequences” of the pandemic.

Valerie Villegas of Portland with the youngest of her six children, Nicholas, 2. Her husband, Robert, 45, died of complications from COVID-19.

Mark Mulligan /Staff photographer

It has affected minority children disproportionately, the study found. Researchers determined that from April 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021, the risk of losing a parent or a grandparent caregiver was 1.1 to 4.5 times higher for children in racial and ethnic minority groups.

In Texas, 58 percent of the children who lost parents were Hispanic and 16 percent were Black, the study found. Hispanics make up 39 percent of the state’s population and Black people 12 percent, according to the 2020 Census.

Some minority groups have larger families, which means the loss of a parent affects more children. But other factors were at work, too.

More than 70 percent of Black and Hispanic men work in front-line jobs in retail, warehousing, meat packing and health care, occupations where the risk of exposure to COVID-19 is greater, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Hispanics are nearly twice as likely to contract COVID-19 as non-Hispanic whites, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

Rozie Salinas and her six-year-old grandson Raiden Gonzalez, 6, are pictured in the backyard of 

their home in San Antonio, Texas, on Dec. 1, 2021. Last year, Raiden lost his parents Mariah and 

Adan Gonzalez to COVID-19. Salinas has been caring for Raiden since his parents died and just 

formally adopted him at the beginning of this year and they recently moved into a new home 

with the help of funds from a GoFundMe that was created when their family’s story received 

national attention following the passing of Raiden’s parents.

Josie Norris / San Antonio Express-News

Other epidemics, such as the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ’90s, claimed the lives of many parents. What sets COVID-19 apart is how quickly the disease can progress, leaving families with little time to steel themselves for a devastating loss.

“With COVID, often someone is dead within several days or two weeks,” said Susan D. Hillis, lead author of the Pediatrics study and a senior adviser for the CDC. “And so, suddenly, there’s this shock without adequate time to prepare families.”

‘He isn’t going to come back’

Robert Villegas was cutting his son’s hair in their home near Corpus Christi when he started breathing heavily. His wife, Valerie, a hospice nurse, knew something was wrong. A check of his oxygen level confirmed it: It had fallen dangerously low.

The Villegases headed for Northshore Emergency Center. Unable to go inside because of COVID-19 restrictions, 3-year-old Robert Jr., his haircut still unfinished, said goodbye to his father. It was the last time he saw him.

Valerie and Robert Villegas were just starting to make plans in case one of them died. They never had time to prepare a will. They didn’t have life insurance.

Robert, a truck driver, was 45 when he died. He’d brought in half the family’s income. His death created a huge financial burden on the family, one that widened when Valerie took a three-month, unpaid leave from her job to care for her children.

Unemployment assistance and Social Security survivor benefits kept the family afloat, but money was tight as Valerie tried to keep six children, ages 1 to 18, fed and clothed. Day care for her two youngest cost more than $700 a month.

“My kids never knew what it was to have the lights turned off or the water turned off,” Villegas said. “And they experienced it a good few times this last year.”

In the spring, she returned to work at hospice after being named director of nurses, an administrative role with a higher salary. Now, she’s able to stay on top of the bills, but there isn’t much left over. There won’t be as many Christmas presents under the tree this year, she said.

While the family’s finances have stabilized, the children are still struggling with the loss of their father. Robert Jr., now 4, has angry outbursts, usually when after he hears someone talk about his father.

“He is just starting to realize he isn’t going to come back,” Villegas said.

‘Struggling to be OK’

Tiffany Sanders, 46, of Pearland, lost her husband, Stephen, to COVID a year ago. He was a consultant for oil and gas companies and contracted the virus on a business trip. The family was blindsided. Stephen, 41, had no underlying health conditions and regularly wore a mask.

He was close to their daughters, now 13 and 15. Sanders said her younger teenager is having a particularly hard time.

“It’s been a struggle to get her to a place where she can still keep her dad alive in her heart and honor him by living the best life that she can,” Sanders said. “She’s still struggling to be OK with having any kind of joy in her life.”

Sanders sought counseling for her two teenage daughters, but it took three months to get even a virtual appointment. Her 13-year-old waited nearly 10 months to see a therapist in person.

Stephen Sanders was the sole breadwinner for the family. Tiffany is supporting the family with the payout from her husband’s life insurance policy and Social Security survivor benefits.

She plans to return to work eventually but wonders whether she’s still employable after 15 years as a stay-at-home parent. Before she had children, she worked in international relocations, helping oil and gas companies move employees to operations in other countries.

“I’m going to have to go back to work. My husband left me money, but I’m only 46 years old and it’s not going to last,” Sanders said. “But I’m not trying to think that far ahead. I can barely get through one day.”

‘Too many memories’

Raiden’s father, Adan Gonzalez, 33, died in June 2020 after being hospitalized with COVID-19 for almost a month. He was a truck driver and was in training for a new job.

His wife, Mariah, died four months later at age 29. As Salinas remembers it, her daughter complained she wasn’t feeling well and was taken to the hospital — and by the next day, she was dead.

For a time, Raiden didn’t want to sleep alone. In September, Salinas moved them from a home she’d been leasing to their “forever home” two miles away. Since then, Raiden has been able to sleep by himself.

“That house that we were at, there were just too many memories in there,” said Salinas, who is a customer service representative for a health insurance company.

A GoFundMe helped pay for their new home and for a more reliable car.

Salinas said Raiden sometimes has “little breakdowns” at home and struggles to focus on school the next day. She’s searching for a therapist for him and is seeing one herself.

“It’s OK. Like I tell Raiden, we’re going to get through this one way or the other,” Salinas said. “If we have to struggle a bit, it’s OK. We’re going to get through it. I just want to make sure that he has a good life and has a good childhood. That way, he’s got his memories to be able to go back and talk about.”

Their Christmas tree includes a little memorial to Raiden’s parents. A glittery gold ornament shaped like an M for Mariah and a silver A for Adan hang front and center on the tree. Between them is an ornament with a picture of a smiling Raiden.

rebecca.carballo@chron.com

megan.rodriguez@express-news.net

Written By

Rebecca Carballo

Written By

Megan Rodriguez

Megan Rodriguez covers Alamo Heights, Olmos Park and general assignment stories for the Express-News.

My Hometown of San Angelo is in Trouble as Doctors Say Texas Leaders Failed To Stop COVID-19 From Spreading

More on necropolitics, politics that are about deaths and dying. Tragically, Texas is a leader in child deaths. Such horribly misplaced priorities by our state's governor. I my hometown of San Angelo, Texas, infections have surged to approximately 2,000 with an astounding 22,000 total infections county-wide. This means that the rural areas are significantly impacted. Forget going to San Angelo any time soon.

Sadly, a 63-year-old minister and family friend, Pastor Edward A. Lopez, who
officiated many years ago at my grandmother's funeral, is one of these fatalities. His family's words expressed in his obituary are particularly unnerving:

"Reverend Lopez believed in the Lord and in medicine. He was fully vaccinated but COVID-19 ravaged his lungs and kidneys due to others not exhibiting the same wisdom. The family wants to thank Shannon Hospital COVID-19 ICU staff for the excellent care given with a special appreciation to Dr. Wood and Emily (Emy) Emmons, RN. Due to COVID-19, the funeral services will be for immediate family members only. Please get fully vaccinated, wear a mask, social distance and wash your hands."

When have you seen an obituary like this? He didn't "lose" his life. It was taken away by Gov. Abbott's necropolitics.

Despite being a very small percentage of the population of all COVID deaths, it is nevertheless the case that even a fully-vaccinated person can die from this terrible virus. 

If the governor or his party aren't going to help prevent preventable deaths, then we must all assume our own individual responsibility. 

This is so saddening. Peace, blessings, and solace for Pastor Lopez' family, church members, and community to which he dedicated his life. 

May he rest in peace.

-Angela Valenzuela

Doctors Say Texas Leaders Failed To Stop COVID-19 From Spreading

Hospitals across the state are running low on pediatric intensive care unit beds. Texas’ Department of State Health Services says only 81 of them remain — and just a couple hundred more regular ICU beds are available in the state of 29 million people.

PAUL FLAHIVE, TPR

 | POSTED ONSEPTEMBER 3, 2021, 11:36 AM

File Photo: Gov. Greg Abbott leads a roundtable discussion on public safety priorities at the Texas Department of Public Safety headquarters in January 2021.

Texas schools have amassed more than 50,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in students in just a couple of weeks. More than a dozen school districts have closed temporarily as a result of the disease, and Texas is a leader in child deaths from COVID-19 with 59 as of Sept. 3.

But state leaders have spent weeks of the surge pushing through controversial bills around abortion, voting restrictions and bail reform while Gov. Abbott has been fighting local governments over their efforts to stem the spread of the disease.

Hospitals across the state are running low on pediatric intensive care unit beds. Texas' Department of State Health Services says only 81 of them remain — and just a couple hundred more regular ICU beds are available in the state of 29 million people.

"Governor Abbott has failed us. A republican state legislature has failed us,” said Dr. David Portugal a cardiologist in Sugarland, Texas. "These leaders should be held accountable and be asked to explain how they can justify taking actions that are killing their fellow Texans."

Portugal and other Texas members of the advocacy group the Committee to Protect Health Care called on the governor to rescind his executive order barring local governments from mandating masks in schools. They are just a few of the many healthcare workers and local governments frustrated by the state’s lack of action on preventing the spread of COVID.

State officials recently admitted the bans were unenforceable by them, leaving it to local district attorneys. But the continued litigation and threats to school districts has left confusion and patchwork of policies that many doctors see as exacerbating the COVID surge.

"Hospital staff and resources are stretched to the breaking point," said Dr. Elena Jimenez-Gutierrez, an internal medicine physician in San Antonio.

The surge has led to canceled surgeries, overwhelmed staff and preventable hospitalizations and deaths.

"Doctors and other health care workers see every day how too many Texans are needlessly getting sick, including many children when we know this disease can be prevented," she said

The governor's office has recruited more doctors and nurses from out of state to help. He authorized more monoclonal antibody therapy centers — though doctors say the wait to get the treatment is as long as 10 days.

Abbott promotes vaccination as the real prevention. He got vaccinated on TV. But he draws the line on mandates — vaccines or masks — which are very unpopular with conservative primary voters as he faces two far-right challengers early next year.

"We will continue to vaccinate more Texans and protect public health and we will do so without treading on Texans personal freedoms," said Abbott in an April tweet where he also announced he would ban private companies from asking for proof of vaccination.

He reissued the order last month.

"Among Texas children who are eligible, the seven-day moving average of doses administered has gone from just over 10,500 in July to now over 15,700. We continue to strongly encourage all eligible Texans to get vaccinated," said Renae Eze, the governor's press secretary.

She also pointed to recent legislation that made remote learning possible for immunocompromised kids. She said schools have learned and implemented safety precautions, too.

And yet the number of cases continues to rise. And those kids are also an unfortunate disease vector for their teachers. Two teachers in Connelly Independent School District died recently, causing the district to shut campuses.

San Antonio is still fighting to regain its emergency powers. Andy Segovia is the city attorney and he says the Texas disaster act — which the governor is using to suspend local power — is about the state helping to coordinate in the wake of a disaster.

It’s novel because usually the governor’s acting on an emergency not saying government has no role, said Segovia.

Five mortuary trailers were dispatched to San Antonio to assist hospitals across the state that had run out of room. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said the forethought on deaths should have been used to stem the spread.

“The fact is, the state is planning that more people are going to die of COVID. So much so that they anticipate local hospitals across the state are not going to be able to handle the amount of death they are going to see,” said Nirenberg.

Eight counties across the state are using refrigerated trucks to store the bodies of the dead. Bell County which includes Temple, Texas, has requested a second FEMA trailer with an extra storage capacity of 50 bodies. Several smaller trailers have been donated by the state funeral directors association.

As more schools see spikes in COVID transmissions, more teachers and students will become infected and could die.

Doctors and many local leaders wish the state would do more to prevent that.

Terribly sad news out of Waco. Read this and cry.

-Angela Valenzuela

#necropolitics

Texas school system closes after 2 teachers die of COVID-19

September 1, 2021

Mary Erazo cleans desks as a custodial crew works to clean classrooms of Dolph 

Briscoe Middle School in San Antonio, March 9, 2020.

Josie Norris, The San Antonio Express-News / 

Staff Photographer

WACO, Texas (AP) — A Central Texas school district closed its schools until after the Labor Day holiday Tuesday after two teachers died last week of COVID-19.

Connally Independent School District officials closed its five suburban Waco schools for the rest of the week after the Saturday COVID-19 death of Natalia Chansler, 41, a sixth grade social studies teacher at Connally Junior High School, said Assistant Superintendent Jill Bottelberghe.

Chansler's death came days after David McCormick, 59, a seventh grade social studies teacher at Connally Junior High, died of COVID-19, Bottelberghe said.

It was not immediately known if either teacher was vaccinated.

Connally High School football coach Terry Gerik says the Cadets will play La Vega as scheduled Friday night.

The school has had 51 confirmed COVID-19 cases since classes began Aug. 18, Bottelberghe said Monday. She added that more cases had been confirmed in the last few days, but she did not know if any have been directly traced back to Chansler.

"We have not found any correlation” between the two deaths, Bottelberghe said. “They were at two different grade levels even though they worked under the same content area, but we have recognized that there has been an increase in spread as far as throughout our student body at those two grade levels.”

In a Monday email, Superintendent Wesley Holt said the hope “is that the closure and holiday break will provide those who are positive with the virus or exposed to others with the virus, the time to isolate and recover. This closure will also allow time for deep cleaning and sanitizing of all CISD facilities.”

The rolling seven-day average of new daily COVID-19 cases in Texas was 15,400 cases as of Sunday, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rolling seven-day average of daily COVID-19 deaths in Texas was 200 per day.

Thousands of UT students could get COVID-19 this fall, new report says by Megan Menchaca, Aug. 12, 2021

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

Megan Menchaca

Aug. 12, 2021 | Austin American-Statesman

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.

The report estimates that an average of 57% of UT students will be vaccinated when the fall semester begins. Under those vaccination rate projections, the average total number of students infected with COVID-19 during the fall semester is expected to be 11,200, with a range from 5,000 to 16,300, without proactive testing.

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. 

This is the first piece I've seen that lays out credible, possible scenarios of how the Covid19 variants could play out with suggestions of how these different scenarios could impact higher education.

According to his bio on his website, BryanAlexander.org, he is "an award–winning, internationally known futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and teacher, working in the field of higher education’s future."

His scenarios are mostly unsettling, to say the least. 

Still, we all need to have our eyes wide open.

Thanks to UT Higher Education Professor Pat Somers for sharing.

-Angela Valenzuela 

Scenarios for the next COVID-19 variants: the SAGE document

Posted on August 8, 2021 by Bryan Alexander

What will COVID-19 develop into?  What variants should we expect?

I’d like to continue my futures exploration of the pandemic today by focusing on a set of scenarios recently published by Britain’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).  It’s an interesting document, sharing a range of possibilities well grounded in current epidemiology, from what I can understand. These potential futures are ones colleges and universities need to consider as they plan for 2021-2022.

Let me summarize and excerpt them here, then develop some implications for higher education.

SAGE’s method – implied, but not fully stated – seems to focus on several scenario variables: virus transmissibility, lethality, and ability to escape vaccines, all driven by mutations to the virus’ shape and contents.

“Scenario One: A variant that causes severe disease in a greater proportion of the population than has occurred to date.”  In other words, this new COVID variant injured and kills more people and a greater range of us.  SAGE offers two modern analogies to help us visualize how terrible this could be: “For example, with similar morbidity/mortality to other zoonotic coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV (~10% case fatality) or MERS-CoV (~35% case fatality).”

35%. Think about that – out of every infected group, about one third dies.  And SAGE considers this to be a “[r]ealistic possibility.”

“Scenario Two: A variant that evades current vaccines.” In other words, the vaccines we’re taking now don’t work as well in blocking transmission and illness.  William Haseltine dubs this one a ““vaccine-busting variant.”  The Delta and Lambda variants are early examples of it.

Note that this could occur by a virus jumping from humans to animals, mutating in those new hosts, then returning to humans again.

“Scenario Three: Emergence of a drug resistant variant after anti-viral strategies.”  Similar to number two, but also more dangerous for therapy and treatment.

“Scenario Four: SARS-CoV-2 follows an evolutionary trajectory with decreased virulence.”  This is a positive development, with COVID-19 weakening over time.  It wouldn’t disappear, just become less and less transmissible and damaging.

The first three are dangerous and frightening. SAGE deems them to be have a decent likelihood of occurring (1+2 are “Realistic possibilit[ies]“, 3 “Likely – unless the drugs are used correctly“). Scenario four is benevolent – but, alas, not so likely to happen soon. (“Unlikely in the short term, realistic possibility in the long term.“)

COVID infections by nation to date, with US emphasized, via DIVOC-19.

Overall, what is to be done?  For many of the scenarios SAGE recommends similar responses: reducing transmission through nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) (i.e., masking, social distancing, lockdowns, etc.); continuing to offer current vaccines, worldwide; developing and administering vaccine boosters; extensive monitoring of humans (and animals) for variants; rapid development of new vaccines; stockpiling therapeutic drugs; investing in AI for long-term use.  In case of scenario three, SAGE recommends not giving people as many antiviral drugs as we now do.

As scenarios, it’s important to remember that they are not only visions of possible futures, but attempts to influence the present. One BBC account reflects that these scenarios seem less likely to occur in that country, given dropping case rates, but might represent an attempt to scare people into better public health behavior.

What does this mean for higher education?

It depends on the scenario.  If scenario one occurs, we face the choices presented in summer 2020: close campuses and shift to remote instruction, or attempt in-person education with major on site protocols to reduce infections?  Increased lethality, and range of most injured victims, means a greater proportion of the academic community can be directly hit. If death tolls reach MERS levels I would hope all campuses would shut down in-person operations, but the pandemic experience shows clearly that many colleges and universities can follow other logics.

Scenarios two and three present similar, familiar choices for postsecondary institutions. Do we invite populations back on campus and trust in our individual mixtures of vaccination, testing, and NPI to keep most of us safe?  Or do we return back online and take major financial hits?

Scenario four is a path back towards normalcy. COVID-19 becomes like the seasonal flu. We want people to take their vaccines. Some will get sick, and a few die. But socially we deem this to be acceptable.  Face to face instruction returns and many try their best to recapture fall 2019.

Academic research appears to be essential for the world in every scenario, especially the first three. This suggests that colleges and universities divert more resources to relevant programs, even if they are suffering financially overall.

Which of these seems most likely to occur?  How do you think they might impact academia?