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Syracuse University announced Monday morning that the start of the spring semester will be delayed two weeks due to the continued rise of active COVID-19 cases in Onondaga County. Stricter social distancing, quarantining and testing guidelines will be put in place for those who return to Syracuse. Even with these changes, a delay will do nothing if students return to their pre-pandemic social activities as it seemed to be the case in the fall.  

University officials claim that this delay is due to the expected surge of COVID-19 cases in the post-holiday season. However, if it is the rise in active cases that SU officials fear, campus should remain closed for the entire spring semester. A delay will do nothing to reduce the number of cases in the area, as students will attempt to recreate a social life for themselves amid the pandemic. 

County health officials and SU administrators hope that these two weeks will be enough time for some campus health care staff to be vaccinated. But as was observed this past fall, students are the ones who are responsible for the majority of on-campus COVID-19 outbreaks. 

Despite the continued increase of active COVID-19 cases, face-to-face classes were still offered to students this past semester. 

The return to in-person instruction seemed to give many students the impression that COVID-19 was less of a threat to them. As a result, students seemingly assumed that if the university deemed in-person classes safe, off-campus parties would also be appropriate. It was because of this that SU saw an outbreak and campus was shut down just as quickly as it was opened. 

This outbreak should have been proof enough that in-person classes of any kind are not a necessity during this pandemic, despite desires for a return to normalcy. The continuation of in-person instruction at SU in the spring exposes the administration’s blatant ignorance to this. 

After months of lockdown, students understandably crave a return to their pre COVID-19 social lives. If in-person instruction resumes, students will assume campus is a safe enough place to fulfill this craving with unsafe social gatherings — it’s not.

Samantha Kolb is an environmental studies major at SUNY-ESF. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at [email protected]. She can be followed on Twitter at @SamiiKolby.

Published on January 6, 2021 at 5:43 pm