This blog is set up for the HHP 126, HHP 157, HHP 420, and HHP 428 courses along with other Sports Students as a way to communicate with fellow classmates and faculty members
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) announced it was investigating reports that a small handful of young adults had developed a condition known as myocarditis after receiving a dose of one of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
CDC monitoring systems have found no more cases of myocarditis in the window following COVID-19 vaccination than would normally be expected in the general population.
The documented cases appear to be "mild" and it is important to note that, to date, there is no evidence that the vaccines caused this condition. Nevertheless, the CDC is now urging clinicians to be alert to young adults who develop potential symptoms of myocarditis after receiving their shots.
What is myocarditis and what are its symptoms?
Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle (myocardium) that hampers the ability of the heart to pump blood normally.
According to the Mayo Clinic, common symptoms of myocarditis include:
Chest pain
Rapid or abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias)
Shortness of breath, at rest or during physical activity
Fluid retention with swelling of the legs, ankles and feet
Fatigue
People with mild cases of myocarditis, or those in the early stages, may not exhibit any symptoms at all, or only mild ones. With more serious cases, complications can include heart failure, heart attack or stroke, or sudden cardiac arrest, which can be fatal.
Myocarditis has many causes but it most often results from a viral infection. As a result, many myocarditis patients also report symptoms consistent with a viral infection, such as headache, body aches, joint pain, fever, a sore throat or diarrhea.
Other causes of the condition include certain bacterial and fungal infections, as well as parasites, such as Trypanosoma cruzi and toxoplasma.
Myocarditis can also sometimes occur if someone is exposed to medication or illegal drugs that might cause an allergic or toxic reaction, as well as certain chemicals or radiation. Certain inflammatory diseases, such as lupus, can also lead to the development of myocarditis.
The chances of developing myocarditis are rare—around 10 to 20 people per 100,000 will experience the condition.
ACIP said the "relatively few" cases of myocarditis seem to have occurred, typically within four days after vaccination—predominantly in adolescents and young adults.
The cases have occurred more often in males than females, and more often following a second dose of the vaccines than a first dose.
Newsweek has contacted the CDC for comment.
Newsweek, in partnership with NewsGuard, is dedicated to providing accurate and verifiable vaccine and health information. With NewsGuard's HealthGuard browser extension, users can verify if a website is a trustworthy source of health information. Visit the Newsweek VaxFacts website to learn more and to download the HealthGuard browser extension.
A nurse inoculates a person with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a mobile clinic in Bridgeport, Connecticut on April 20, 2021. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating reports that a small handful of young adults have developed a condition known as myocarditis after receiving a dose of one of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images
Source: UVa volleyball players secretly recorded their coaches prior to their firing and the season's cancellation
BY MIKE BARBER Richmond Times-Dispatch
Former Virginia volleyball coach Aaron Smith (center) speaks with his team during a match. Smith was promoted to head coach in 2017 and went 31-74 in four seasons, including a 12-55 mark in ACC matches.
Virginia Media Relations via Richmond Times-Dispatch
CHARLOTTESVILLE — Members of the Virginia women's volleyball team secretly recorded a coaches-only meeting in a Miami-area hotel room in March, then complained about the staff to the administration, leading to the firing of the coaches and cancellation of the final three weeks of the season, according to a source.
A member of the dismissed staff, speaking Sunday on the condition of anonymity, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that players used their cellphones, holding them up to the door and adjacent walls of the room where the coaches met for three hours following a 3-0 loss at Miami on March 14 that kept them winless in the ACC.
It is unknown if the players demanded the coaches' termination, but the former staff member said continuing the season at that point would have been untenable.
"It was a rough trip. A lot of trust was broken between both parties on that trip and it would have been a really big uphill battle to actually finish that season given what happened that night," the former staff member said. "But for the players, I haven't spoken to any of them, so I have no idea if they were happy with that outcome. If they realized what they were doing was going to cause this or not."
Virginia fell to 2-12 and was winless in the ACC after the pair of losses in South Florida. On March 17, the school announced the entire coaching staff — head coach Aaron Smith, assistants Nikki Dailey and Joe Klein, and director of volleyball operations Kelsea Kalich — had been placed on "a paid administrative leave pending the review of a personnel matter," and that the team's upcoming matches against Florida State and Louisville had been canceled.
A day later, UVa announced the staff had been fired and the remainder of the season had been cancelled.
Smith, a Richmond native and former Monacan High School star, joined the Virginia staff in 2011 as an assistant. In 2017, he was promoted to head coach and went 31-74 in four seasons, including a 12-55 mark in ACC matches.
On April 26, Virginia hired Florida assistant Shannon Wells to take over the program.
According to the former staff member, the team returned to Virginia on Monday, March 15. UVa officials interviewed the staff members on Tuesday, March 16, then interviewed a select group of players before deciding to fire the coaches a day later.
The staff found the speed of the investigation unsettling, as well as the fact that they were not told what issues the players had brought to the administration until receiving their termination letters.
The former staff member said none of the terminated staffers have heard the recording, but players told them about it before leaving Miami and administrators confirmed its existence. However, the source said, the official termination letter the school issued did not cite the recording as the cause for the dismissals. That letter contained both true and false allegations, according to the former staff member, though the source declined to reveal what any of those were.
"I'm not proud of everything that happened that day but what they gave for reasoning, I don't agree with all of it," the former staff member said.
The coaches' meeting was a fairly standard session "recapping the weekend" and planning the next week's practices, though the source said it lasted three hours.
"I remember that night very, very vividly and I don't remember some of the accusations that they said," the former staff member said. "But there could have been some miscommunication."
The University of Virginia rejected a request made under Virginia's Freedom of Information Act by the Times-Dispatch seeking the audio recording as well as a collection of emails from members of the team to senior athletics administrators. UVa said those items were "exempt scholastic records containing information concerning identifiable individuals," according to the university's Friday response.
"While I am unable to comment on the details, I do want to commend our student-athletes for their leadership and express my gratitude for how they have handled a very difficult situation," said athletic director Carla Williams in a statement at the time of the dismissals. "We will continue to support them as our program moves forward."
An athletic department spokesman said Sunday that Williams had no further comment.
According to the source, the staff was surprised by the level of player discontent revealed in the termination letters. Outside of some player frustration over the coaches' enforcement of stringent COVID-19 safety protocols, the former staff member said the coaches were largely unaware of the rift that was apparently growing.
"I do care about them and think highly of them. That's why I have such a hard time with this now," the former staff member said. "I don't know if I read them right or misread something or was totally oblivious to another thing. I don't know. That's kind of where I'm at with that. I did get some confirmation from other members of the athletic department that the players were very unhappy with the staff."
The former staff member declined to say whether the fired coaches were pursuing any legal action against the school, but did acknowledge the staff has been trying to obtain a copy of the recording.
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Five-star junior point guard 'Scoot' Henderson to join NBA's G League Ignite next season
Sterling "Scoot" Henderson, the No. 7 prospect in the ESPN class of 2022 recruiting rankings, has signed with the NBA's G League Ignite program, the league announced Friday.
The move signals a shift in the nature of the G League Ignite thinking. Henderson is the first high school junior to commit to the Ignite program and, due to his age, marks the first player signed who is not NBA draft-eligible the next year.
Henderson has finished all coursework and will graduate high school a year early next week, with graduation a prerequisite for joining the G League Ignite. Because he will not turn 19 until 2023, Henderson will not be eligible for the 2022 NBA draft and is committing to spend two years with the Ignite program.
Auburn, Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky and Florida State were some of the schools most heavily involved in Henderson's recruiting. Henderson, who goes to Kell High School in Marietta, Georgia, had an impressive junior year that saw him ascend recruiting rankings after leading his team to the class 6A state title game.
At 6-foot-3, Henderson is one of quickest and most explosive athletes in the high school game, while also showing strong potential as a perimeter shooter. His 6-9 wingspan gives him good potential on the defensive end.
Early showings on the grassroots circuit this spring indicated that Henderson had a case to be considered a top-three prospect in the 2022 class, along with Emoni Bates and Jalen Duren.
Henderson is the second prospect officially announced to the G League Ignite, joining big man Michael Foster from Hillcrest Prep in Arizona. Jaden Hardy, the No. 2 prospect in the 2021 high school class, has announced his intentions to join the program but has not officially signed a contract, a source told ESPN.
Eighteen-year-old Chinese forward Fanbo Zeng, who previously committed to play for Gonzaga, also announced that he'll be joining the Ignite via a statement posted on his Weibo account last month. His signing has also not yet been officially consummated.
Jonathan Givony is an NBA draft expert and the founder and co-owner of DraftExpress.com, a private scouting and analytics service used by NBA, NCAA and international teams.
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'Embarrassed' University of Vermont track athletes black out school name on uniform
University of Vermont track and field athletes said they are "embarrassed" by the school's handling of sexual misconduct cases and "frustrated" by athletic director Jeff Schulman's recent statementsin the aftermath of this month's walkout on campus that drew thousands.
How did they show their discontent? About 25 of them covered "Vermont" with black tape across their uniforms or team sweatshirts during the New England championships on May 14-15 in New Britain, Connecticut.
"The past four years we've been told we are competing for the university and their values," UVM senior hurdler Cameron McLaughlin said in an interview with the Free Press on Monday. "Yet we're not sharing the same values if we are against all these things and they are doing nothing to change them.
"We decided to do it at New Englands to get the word out and raise attention to how terrible a job UVM athletics and the administration has been doing."
Sophomore pole vaulter Sofia Wittmann shared McLaughlin's stance.
"Our athletic department doesn't represent us and who we are," Wittmann said.
A social media movement, where UVM students shared their personal experiences of sexual violence, ignited the walkout on May 3. School leaders said they agreed to student demands, including requiring Catamount sports teams to attend sexual violence, harassment or healthy relationship training at least once each semester.
Schulman, a UVM alumnus and longtime school administrator who became AD in 2016, released a statement four days after the protest, saying his department has historically and will continue treating allegations "with the utmost of seriousness" and guarantee cases are referred to the school's AAEO office.
"Sexual misconduct in any form is unacceptable and is not tolerated by the UVM Athletic Department," Schulman said. "At no time is athletic status, gender, or sport a factor in determining responsibility or an appropriate sanction."
In a statement to the Free Press on Tuesday afternoon, Schulman said he was "aware of the concerns expressed" by the school's track and field athletes.
"My Athletic Department colleagues and I will continue to have dialogue with student-athletes about these concerns," Schulman said. "I know that all of us in the Athletic Department are committed to eliminating sexual misconduct in all its forms and we will continue to work with our student-athlete leaders to ensure that our education, training and departmental response support this goal."
UVM athletes: Athletic department statements insufficient
McLaughlin said the athletic department's lack of action speaks louder than Schulman's words.
"I feel like they just make blanket statements with no urgency or desire to change anything," McLaughlin said. "They just want to cover their asses as bad as that sounds. They are just saying, 'Oh, we are doing what we can,' even though they are not."
In an interview Tuesday, sprinter Sonia John pressed Schulman to take further steps.
"It seems like (Schulman's) saying it to put a band aid on it and not really fixing the problem," said John, among the three dozen UVM track athletes who opted to wear a teal ribbon on their arm for sexual abuse awareness. "(Schulman's) the head of the department and he's let things go already. What are you going to do different now?"
Wittmann pointed to the case of Kendall Ware as an example of the school, specifically the athletic department, not doing enough and giving preferential treatment to one athlete over another.
Ware, a university swimmer, said she was raped by a men's basketball player and that UVM improperly handled her investigation. Ware told the Free Press that she believed the school handled her case differently because the accused was a basketball player. She said UVM fed her misleading information during the process and pressured her to resolve the complaint through an informal resolution that warranted lesser repercussions.
"In Kendall's case, the person was allowed to continue to play," Wittmann said. "He did not face consequences in a way that he should've faced consequences."
In responding to Free Press questions last week about the department's role in handling reports of sexual misconduct, Schulman said staff send allegations to the school's AAEO office, which works independently of the department.
"At that point, our role is to provide personal support for any student-athlete who may request it, and in the event of a finding of responsibility, to apply our student-athlete code of conduct as appropriate," Schulman said.
The uproar over sexual violence on campus hits close to home for Wittmann.
"There are sexual assault survivors on these athletic teams, including myself, competing for a university and athletic department that has not supported us as survivors or created an environment where we feel safe," Wittmann said. "When students don't feel safe or supported, we cannot represent this university with pride."
Wittmann said she wants the athletic department to do more.
"I'd like to see our athletic department take an initiative to support survivors instead of only responding to demands after months of people being frustrated," Wittmann said. "I am glad they responded well to student demands but the environment needs to change as well.
"Just holding a seminar that they were asked to hold isn't going to change the team cultures and environment that the athletic department has created."
At the New England meet, competitors and coaches asked why UVM athletes had blacked out the Vermont letters on their uniforms. Those conversations were powerful, Wittmann said.
"It isn't the public image that UVM or the athletic department wants to share throughout New England," Wittmann said. "Taping our jerseys brought attention to what's happening and hopefully push for more change and push for a safer environment."
Former Louisville basketball assistant coach Dino Gaudio federally charged for attempt to extort program
Former Louisville basketball assistant coach Dino Gaudio has been charged with one federal count of attempting to extort money and other things of value from the university, according to information released Tuesday by Michael Bennett, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.
According to the charge, Gaudio, during an in-person meeting with Louisville officials on March 17, "threatened to report to the media allegations that the University of Louisville men's basketball program had violated [NCAA] rules in its production of recruiting videos for prospective student-athletes and its use of graduate assistants in practice, unless the University of Louisville paid [Gaudio] his salary for an additional 17 months or provided the lump sum equivalent of 17 months of salary."
Later that day, according to the charge, Gaudio "sent a text message to the University of Louisville personnel containing one of the recruiting videos he was threatening to send to the media." The text message traveled outside Kentucky, according to the government.
Gaudio, 64, is charged with interstate communication with intent to extort.
"As detailed in the charging document, after Gaudio was informed that his contract would not be renewed, he threatened to inform members of the media of alleged NCAA violations within the men's basketball program unless he was paid a significant sum of money," Louisville officials said in a statement. "The allegations of violations are the impermissible production of recruiting videos for prospective student-athletes and the impermissible use of graduate managers in practices and workouts. While the University cannot comment further due to the ongoing federal investigation and the NCAA process, it continues to cooperate with authorities as well as with the NCAA on the matter."
Gaudio, a former ESPN analyst, spent three seasons under Louisville coach Chris Mack, who decided to replace Gaudio and assistant Luke Murray in March after a disappointing year for the program.
"When he was not renewed, he was hurt, he became angry, and in the course of that he made statements he regrets," Gaudio's attorney, Brian Butler, told ESPN. "Unfortunately, those statements were taped, and he was not given an opportunity to walk them back. They were turned over to law enforcement. Coach Gaudio takes full responsibility for his actions and lack of judgment and the statements he made in a very heated situation. He apologies to his family and friends for his actions and hopes that everyone will consider his 40 years of good and all the contributions he has made."
Under federal sentencing guidelines, Gaudio faces up to two years in prison and is eligible for probation.
"While I cannot comment on the details or substance of the matter, I am grateful for the professionalism of members of law enforcement and the United States Attorney's Office," Mack said in a statement. "The University and I were the victims of Coach Gaudio's conduct and I will continue to fully cooperate with authorities in their investigations. We take seriously any allegation of NCAA violations within our basketball program and will work within the NCAA processes to fully review the allegations."
Louisville received a notice of allegations from the NCAA in May 2020, including one Level I allegation involving improper recruiting offers for former signee Brian Bowen II and the coach of another prospect as well as three Level II allegations, including one against former basketball coach Rick Pitino. The case is still being adjudicated through the Independent Accountability Resolution Process.
Louisville also is accused of failing to adequately monitor the recruitment of an incoming, high-profile student-athlete.
The NCAA alleges that Pitino, who now coaches at Iona, did not satisfy his head-coaching responsibility when he failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance. Former assistant coaches Kenny Johnson and Jordan Fair are accused of providing impermissible benefits and transportation and of having impermissible contact with a recruit.
In a response to the NCAA, Louisville officials wrote that the university cannot be held responsible for the misconduct of an Adidas employee and consultant and a former agent runner who promised to pay $100,000 to Bowen's father after the same three men were convicted of defrauding the university in a federal criminal trial.
After Wake Forest coach Skip Prosser died following a heart attack in 2007, Gaudio replaced his mentor and coached the Demon Deacons for the next three seasons, amassing a 61-31 record and reaching the NCAA tournament twice. He later became an ESPN college basketball analyst, a job he held until joining Mack's staff in 2018.
The two had worked together as assistants at Xavier. The Cardinals finished 24-7 during the 2019-20 campaign, before the NCAA tournament was canceled. The next year, however, Mack's team went 13-7 in a shortened season that did not end with an invitation to the NCAA tournament. The program was sidelined for weeks due to COVID-19 challenges.
After his team's disappointing finish, Mack said, "There's certainly going to be changes." Weeks later, the team announced the dismissals of Gaudio and Murray.
The Future of Virus Tracking Can Be Found on This College Campus
Colorado Mesa University and the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard have spent the last year exploring new approaches to managing outbreaks.
Eliza Earle for The New York Times
One weekend last August, Shynell Moore woke up with a headache and a sore throat. Ms. Moore, then just a few weeks into her junior year at Colorado Mesa University, pulled out her phone and fired up a symptom-tracking app called Scout.
Within seconds of reporting her symptoms, the screen turned red: She might have Covid-19, the app said. She promptly got a call from a school administrator, and before the day was out, she had packed some clothes and her elephant ear fish, Dumbo, and moved into quarantine housing. Her Covid-19 test soon came back positive.
Several days into her quarantine period, Ms. Moore took a whiff of Dumbo's typically malodorous food. "I couldn't smell it," she said. "And then I drank some cough syrup, and I couldn't taste it." She opened Scout and clicked an option: "Lost taste or smell."
Students at Colorado Mesa University use the Scout app to report symptoms.Fathom/C.M.U.
Each time she reported a symptom, the information was transmitted to Lookout, the university's digital Covid-19 dashboard. Over the months that followed, Lookout evolved into a sophisticated system for tracking Covid-19 symptoms and cases across campus, recording students' contacts, mapping case clusters, untangling chains of viral transmission and monitoring the spread of new variants.
"Colorado Mesa has the most sophisticated system in the country to track outbreaks," said Dr. Pardis Sabeti, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard who has helped health officials around the world respond to Ebola, Lassa fever and other infectious diseases. "It's definitely the kind of analytics that people talk about having but nobody actually has access to in this way."
Lookout is the product of a partnership between C.M.U. — a medium-sized school that sits in the high desert of Western Colorado and prides itself on serving disadvantaged students — and the Broad Institute, a cutting-edge genomic research center in Cambridge, Mass.
Together, they have turned C.M.U.'s campus of 10,000-plus students into a real-world, real-time epidemiological laboratory, experimenting with creative approaches to pandemic management.Not everything has gone perfectly — college students will be college students, after all, and a university cannot be entirely cordoned off from the wider world. But the lessons they have learned and the tools they have developed could help institutions around the world better manage future outbreaks, Dr. Sabeti said: "We're trying to build technologies that can be used globally. But a school is a great place to start."
Shynell "Nelly" Moore, a junior at Colorado Mesa University, contracted Covid-19 last fall and had to quarantine in the covid dorm. She brought her fish, Dumbo, with her.Eliza Earle for The New York Times
Facebook for outbreaks
In 2016 and 2017, mumps outbreaks blossomed across Massachusetts, hopping from one college campus to another. Dr. Sabeti worked closely with state epidemiologists, watching them map case clusters by hand and log data in increasingly unwieldy Excel spreadsheets. It was painstaking, time-consuming work, and the insights were "really hard-earned," she said.
They were still developing the app, which became Scout, when Covid-19 hit. "Five-year plans turned into six-month plans," Dr. Sabeti said. Fathom raced to finish the app, while Dr. Sabeti looked for a place to pilot it.
Dr. Pardis Sabeti, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, has helped health officials around the world respond to Covid-19, Ebola, Lassa fever and other infectious diseases.Damon Winter/The New York Times
She had begun advising colleges across the country on their coronavirus responses, but C.M.U., based in Grand Junction, Colo., immediately stood out to her. "We were looking for somebody who was scrappy, hungry, ready to go," Dr. Sabeti said. "And we felt there was a need there."
Like many schools, C.M.U. had suddenly suspended its in-person classes in mid-March 2020. College students everywhere were facing the same educational disruption. But C.M.U. administrators worried that their students — two-thirds of whom were students of color, low-income or the first in their families to go to college — might be permanently derailed by a semester, or longer, spent entirely online.
And so the administration made a decision: In the fall, it would bring students back to campus. All of them. "It became really obvious very quickly, this was a moral imperative," saidJohn Marshall, the school's vice president. "We had to find a way to get back." (Mr. Marshall, himself a C.M.U. alumnus, was recently named the university's new president, starting on July 1.)
Mr. Marshall and Amy Bronson, who directs C.M.U.'s physician assistant program, became co-chairs of the campus coronavirus response. When they first connected with Dr. Sabeti in the summer of 2020, they told her about C.M.U.'s can-do, community spirit and their determination not to make it a "less than" year for students. They also sent her a music video that students had made about returning to campus safely.
John Marshall, vice-president of C.M.U., and Amy Bronson, director of the university's physician assistant program.Eliza Earle for The New York Times
As the teams began to talk, it soon became clear that their work together would go far beyond piloting an app. They strategized about testing, planned for worst-case scenarios and devised new learning experiences, including a for-credit seminar, "Leaning In: Leadership in the Time of a Pandemic." (Dr. Sabeti and the governor of Colorado were both guest lecturers.)
"C.M.U. had this really bold desire to be back and to revive in-person education," said Kian Sani, special projects adviser to Dr. Sabeti. "So we really put our entire team and effort into supporting that mission." The teams just clicked, he said. "It was basically like, 'Let's all hold hands' — without actually all holding hands, because it's a pandemic."
All in the 'mavily'
When students returned in August, Scout became their campus wellness passport. Every day, they used Scout to report whether they had any Covid-19 symptoms or had recently traveled outside the area. (They were also encouraged to log the names of any recent close contacts.) If they had no symptoms and no recent travel, the screen turned green. This green screen was their ticket to enter the classroom, the cafeteria and other campus buildings. It quickly became a new daily habit for students. "It's an every day thing, for sure," Ms. Moore said. "It's engraved in the head: Got to do it every day."
The data was fed into Lookout, the dashboard that Fathom had developed to give administrators a holistic view of what was happening on campus: "Across this 10,000-student population, how are we actually doing day to day?" said Fathom's founder, Ben Fry, who built Scout and Lookout with his colleague Olivia Glennon.
C.M.U. uses a dashboard called Lookout to track Covid-19 symptoms and cases across campus. (All screenshots show simulated data and names.)Fathom/C.M.U.
In addition to aggregating symptom data, Lookout also pulls in hourly results from the university's coronavirus testing site. The university, which did not have the resources to test every student every week, had created a tiered testing strategy. Taking inspiration from the school mascot, the Maverick, C.M.U. asked students to sort themselves into family units, or "mavilies," that encompassed their regular close contacts.
The university randomly selected 250 studentsto take a coronavirus test every week. But students in certain high-risk mavilies — like members of sports teams, who often practiced, ate and lived together — were selected more frequently than those in lower-risk ones.
When a student tested positive, administrators could use Lookout to see who was in their mavily and any other recent contacts they had reported in Scout. Lookout also displayed a list of every mavily with a recent positive test result, as well as any "high-spread" mavilies with multiple recent positives. (Mr. Marshall, Dr. Bronson and the university's lead contact tracer were the only people with access to the full dashboard; all publicly reported information was aggregated, rather than tied to individual students, Dr. Bronson said.)
Lookout can show Covid-19 tests results within a dorm, a sports team or a "mavily," a group of close student contacts.Fathom/C.M.U.
If it seemed like the virus was beginning to spread within a mavily, which happened on the football team in September, the university could take quick action. "That was something that was really successful for us: Being able to say, in real time, 'OK, we're going to shut down operations protocols for your team to meet, and instead, a percentage of you are all going to go test,'" Dr. Bronson said. "And we're going to know pretty quickly whether or not that is moving through the mavily."
Wastewater warnings
Engineering students collecting wastewater samples to test for coronavirus on campus. They meet three times a week to conduct the sampling rounds.Eliza Earle for The New York Times
Lookout also displays a geographic heat map of cases, a dorm view with room-by-room maps of positive and negative test results, and data from a new wastewater surveillance system, which tracks the coronavirus levels in the sewage flowing from various dorms. (People with Covid-19 shed the virus in their stool.) "As Lookout came together, it took this really complicated web of data and helped us start to both visually see it and to start making sense of it," Mr. Marshall said.
The wastewater data has proved critical.In late September, for instance, the team noticed a sudden spike in the viral levels in wastewater from Grand Mesa, a suite-style residence hall. They responded by strategically testing a subset of residents, making sure to get at least one from each suite or mavily. They found two positives, traced their contacts and sent the infected students into quarantine.
But when the next wastewater readings came in from Grand Mesa, the viral level was still high. More testing and tracing revealed that some students had not been entirely honest with the contact tracers about their social activities. The university ultimately identified four more cases in the dorm.
Wastewater samples can help identify dorms that need additional Covid-19 testing.Fathom/C.M.U.
"The kids were telling us one thing, but the data was telling us something different," Mr. Marshall said. "If you just paid attention to the testing and the tracing, you would say, 'Right, we fixed it.' But the wastewater data was telling us, 'Nope, you haven't fixed it, you better go back in.' And it allowed us to ultimately keep that confined." (Despite some isolated incidents of dishonesty, most students cooperated with contact tracers, administrators said.)
It was one of five times that the wastewater helped them discover multiple infected students in a particular dorm during the fall semester. "We feel pretty confident that we stopped five outbreaks,"said Kari Sholtes, an environmental engineer at C.M.U. who set up the wastewater system.
C.M.U. is not the only school doing wastewater surveillance or targeted testing. But what sets C.M.U. apart is how effectively it has combined all the available tactics, said Eric Parrie, the chief executive of COVIDCheck Colorado, a social enterprise company that has helped schools and organizations across the state — including C.M.U., 14 other universities and 33 school districts — implement their testing and vaccination programs."I think it's best in class," he said. "I think that's true in Colorado, and I think it's probably true, actually, if you look across the country."
Outbreak operations
The wastewater sampling crew with its testing gear making its way to another sampling site.Eliza Earle for The New York Times
While administrators were scrambling to stop outbreaks, students in the leadership seminar were working to simulate one, partnering with a Broad Institute team on "Operation Outbreak."
The campuswide simulation deployed an educational smartphone app, which Dr. Sabeti and Dr. Colubri had developed several years prior. (Dr. Colubri now has his own lab at University of Massachusetts Medical School.) Over the Halloween weekend, hundreds of C.M.U. students went about their lives while letting the app, which could "transmit" a virtual virus to other nearby phones, run in the background. If students were in close proximity to another participating phone, they might become "infected."
The goal was to "empower the students to better understand how their actions are influencing their community and influencing their friend groups," said Bryn Loftness, a C.M.U. computer science major who helped lead the project. "Maybe they'll find out through this app that 'Oh, I wasn't social distancing as much as I thought I would, and I had this many close contacts. Maybe I can do better.'" (Ms. Loftness, who graduated from C.M.U. at the end of that semester, currently works as a research intern in Dr. Sabeti's lab.)
The data revealed that while many students were being careful, there was a subset with a lot of social contacts — maybe even enough of them to fuel a larger outbreak.
And then, just after the simulation ended, they had one.
Over the course of October, the number of Covid-19 cases in the surrounding community, Mesa County, had climbed steadily. University officials watched with some trepidation; 90 percent of C.M.U. students had jobs, many in the service industry.
Grace Tandus, left, and Madelyn Schmidt prepared for going out to collect samples.Eliza Earle for The New York Times
For three weeks, it seemed like their pandemic measures might be enough to keep the virus off campus. But then, in early November, more cases began popping up at C.M.U. — in many different mavilies and dorms. Cases ticked up from 26, in the last week of October, to 124 the following week. The week after that, cases peaked at 290.
The university tripled the size of its contact-tracing staff and quadrupled the number of tests it was administering. "We were, hour by hour, working through the contact tracing, working through the case management, watching wastewater," Mr. Marshall said.
As different mavilies became viral hot spots, administrators began implementing "Covid timeouts," asking all members to follow a modified quarantine procedure until they found every affiliated case. They also urged students to be socially responsible, especially as they prepared to leave campus for Thanksgiving.
To reduce student travel, C.M.U. had always planned to conduct virtual classes between Thanksgiving and winter break. Ultimately, it suspended in-person classes several days early to give students more time to get tested and isolate before returning home. "We did not send a bunch of people out of here, all positive, going to spread it to other places," Dr. Bronson said.
And when students left campus, C.M.U. opened its testing site to members of the broader community, who sometimes faced long waits at the county's single drive-through testing site. "They helped ease that pressure," said Jeff Kuhr, the executive director of Mesa County's public health department. Over the next two months, C.M.U.'s testing site administered more than 18,000 tests to local residents. The autumn surge was "overwhelming," Dr. Kuhr said. "But it was great to have C.M.U. by our side."
Life goes on
Lucas Torres, a biology major graduating on Saturday, had initially been nervous about returning to C.M.U. during a pandemic. But returning turned out to be a bright spot.Eliza Earle for The New York Times
The November outbreak had illustrated how intertwined the university was with the wider community. So when students returned to campus in January,C.M.U. expanded mavilies, contact tracing and targeted testing efforts to include students' off-campus contacts.
The campus testing site remained open to all county residents. This "altruistic" testing strategy has become a cornerstone of the university's response, and Dr. Sabeti's team recently created a model demonstrating that this approach can help institutions keep their own members safe.
The Broad Institute scientists have also begun sequencing Covid-19 tests and wastewater samples from C.M.U., identifying a new variant that spread rapidly across campus. Their collaborators are currently studying it to determine whether it might be more dangerous.
The sequencing data — which is now, of course, in Lookout — has also allowed the teams to map hidden chains of transmission, identifying linked cases and providing hints about exactly when and where the virus is spreading.
The Lookout dashboard can show sequencing data for confirmed cases.Fathom/C.M.U.
So far, Mr. Marshall said, they have not identified a single case of coronavirus transmission that happened in the classroom, where students wore masks and remained socially distanced — and had to show a green screen for admission. Instead, most students seemed to contract the virus at small social gatherings or, to a lesser extent, in the workplace.
The detailed, high-resolution data from C.M.U. will "help us better understand viral spread in congregate settings and how we can help mitigate it in the future," said Dr. Sabeti, who plans to publish a "deep study" of the transmission dynamics at C.M.U.
Aiming to gain the same sorts of insights, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is finalizing a deal to send samples from a few dozen state-run testing sites to the Broad Institute for sequencing, said Dr. Emily Travanty, the department's lab director.
Over the longer term, Dr. Sabeti and her colleagues hope to build versions of Scout and Lookout that can be used by schools, companies, local governments and other organizations around the world to respond to outbreaks of infectious disease.
C.M.U. is also looking ahead, brainstorming about how they could adapt Scout for the fall, when many students will be vaccinated, and whether they can use their new tools to slow the spread of other infectious diseases, like flu. "We were on a call with Fathom a few days ago dreaming about what the long game looks like," Dr. Bronson said.
With graduation set for this weekend, Mr. Marshall, C.M.U.'s soon-to-be president, is pleased with how the past year has gone. "I view it as a success and not a small one," he said. "I think we will look back on this year as being one of those defining moments for our university." Yes, they had Covid-19 cases, he said, but they also had 881 freshmen who were the first in their families to go to college — who were able to actually go to college.
"It was never about how do you stop a virus?" Mr. Marshall said. Instead, he said, the challenge was: "How do you manage life while dealing with a pandemic? And in that regard, I would say we've done as strong of a job as anybody."
Lucas Torres, a biology major graduating on Saturday, had initially been nervous about returning to C.M.U. during a deadly pandemic. And it had turned out to be an enormously difficult year for him: During winter break, he and several of his family members all got Covid-19. His mother developed pneumonia and his grandmother died from the disease.
School had turned out to be a bright spot. Mr. Torres was "inspired" by C.M.U.'s response, he said: "It allowed for students to have a purpose. There was a responsibility, shared responsibility coming back to campus."
Shortly after recovering from Covid-19, he proposed to his girlfriend. (She said yes.) He is about to take his E.M.T. certification exam and hopes to go to medical school.
"I was able to make the most of my time at C.M.U., and I'm glad that they allowed for that," Mr. Torres said. "Even if it wasn't the same as it would be if not for Covid, it was better than sitting at home in front of a screen."
