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What We Know About The 20 Universities With The Most Coronavirus Cases (Forbes)
What do these hot-spot institutions have in common?
Seven are in the Southeastern Conference, one of the Power 5 conferences still determined to play a football schedule in the fall.
Most are in the southern part of the United States. So much for the goofy theory that warm weather will help make the virus “just go away.” The states of Alabama, North Carolina and Texas each have three institutions on the list, and Georgia, Iowa and Illinois each have two.
All but six of the universities - UNC (Chapel Hill), North Carolina State University, East Carolina University, University of Kentucky, Illinois State, and the University of Illinois - are in states led by Republican governors, who have generally encouraged their schools to open their campuses in the fall at the same time they have been less likely than their Democrat counterparts to take aggressive steps like mandating the wearing of masks or issuing executive orders to close establishments to stem outbreaks of the virus. Some have even interfered with local mandates intended to keep the virus in check. This finding is consistent with research by John Barnshaw of Ad Astra and Chris Marsicano of Davidson College who found that if a state voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, the colleges in that state were significantly more likely to have planned to deliver more in-person instruction in the fall. This was also true for states with Republican governors and Republican control of legislatures.
Many of the universities on the list did not require students to submit a Covid-19 test result prior to returning to campus, and even fewer are requiring random or repeated testing after they arrive. Nonetheless, Baylor is in the top twenty despite requiring students to submit a negative test result before arriving on campus. And the University of Illinois, widely recognized for requiring “all university faculty, staff and students participating in any on-campus activities... to participate in on-campus Covid-19 testing twice per week and receive negative results at least every four days” also made the list. Rigorous testing may be a key ingredient to an effective strategy, but it does not guarantee success.