As COVID-19 cases among university students rise, along with large street parties continuing in the University District, concerns about student crowding on campus are rising too.
Since Aug. 30, 24 cases of COVID-19 have been linked to the university. Last week, the local health unit said transmission was being traced back to parties, and mostly people from the 18-29 age bracket were testing positive.
And while large parties are attracting a lot of attention and criticism, some Queen’s professors say they might not be the only reason for the region’s growing infection rate.
“Yes, the parties are a problem. The behaviour is really irresponsible. But it’s very hard, on the one hand, to say students shouldn’t be congregating that way and then to ask them to attend a 700-person class inside, you know, for hours at a time,” said Samantha King, a professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies.
King says the school’s decision to jump into full-time in-person learning was a step too far and made too quickly.
Currently, the province is allowing colleges and universities to fill classrooms to 100 per cent capacity, as long as everyone is masked and double-vaccinated.
But even with the school’s vaccine mandate in place, King believes Queen’s should have taken a more careful approach like many other universities in the province. Nearby St. Lawrence College decided last minute to switch half of its courses online.
“Until people are fully vaccinated, until we have a sense of where communities spread is going in the wake of students returning to campus. I think that would have been ideal, if we had just had a few weeks of remote to see where we are, to get people vaccinated. And then we could take it from there,” she said.
Currently, the university has a vaccine mandate in place that required all students attending campus to have their first dose by Sept. 15 and be fully vaccinated by Oct. 15. Monday, the school said close to 95 per cent of students said they were already fully vaccinated, but Queen’s is not requiring final proof of vaccination until the mid-October deadline.
Queen’s provided a statement on the matter Tuesday, saying that vaccinations are the most important factor in back-to-school learning.
The school said it is also doubling down on health measures such as masking, handwashing and air filtration. In order to ensure proper air filtration, air ventilation systems have been installed.
But the faculty association president Jordan Morelli still feels that the university has fallen short so far this semester.
“They’re our employer, and at the end of the day, they have an obligation to make sure we have a safe and healthy workplace. And I don’t think they’ve demonstrated that yet. That’s not to say it’s not safe, they just haven’t demonstrated it,” Morelli said.