COVID-19 Cases Surge in Major College States, Massachusetts and Texas

With the novel coronavirus continuing to ravage the United States at full-force and a deadly flu season approaching, states that boast the nation’s largest universities and student bodies are already enduring the grim repercussions of massive economic losses and public health risks.

The state of Massachusetts, which has 93 colleges and universities statewide, implemented a rigid reopening plan on Aug. 1 in anticipation of an increase in out-of-state travel due to an influx of college students. While the guidelines require testing and isolation upon arrival, face coverings and social distancing for all out-of-state travelers, Data USA’s State-by-State COVID-19 Report shows a sudden surge in cases around late-August corresponding with average college move-in days.

Massachusetts proved to have a proactive response during the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak, stalling their number of positive cases per population around May 6, while other university-dense states like Texas were just beginning to see initial, widespread infection.

Housing almost 300 higher education institutions and 1.5 million college students as one of the nation’s most severe coronavirus “hotspots”, Texas has recorded an inherent increase in positive cases since courses resumed in late-August with 117,774 new infections between Aug. 15 and Sept. 11.

Within the same time frame of Aug. 15 to Sept. 11, Massachusetts documented 5,688 new positive test results—most of which are centralized in the Boston metropolitan area. This data may appear staggering at first when considering the vast differentiation between Boston’s population and sprawling cities in Texas, such as Houston at 2.3 million.

However, 53-percent of Massachusetts colleges and universities are localized in the Greater Boston Area and the downtown metropolitan area has a population density of 13,841 people per square mile—four times that of renowned college towns, Houston and Austin, Tex., which have been struggling to manage their outbreaks amid students’ return to campus.

Massachusetts’ pandemic protocol is the bare minimum for the contexts in which society has found itself but, given its high population density in comparison to urban hotspots in Texas, the preventative measures mandated by both the state and its higher education institutions appear to be far worth the economic deficit. Students are (statistically) staying safer and healthier, in addition to having a less-likely chance of being infected during their time at school.

This experimental education, regardless of how retrospectively 'good' positive case results a state receives, is placing millions of students at risk for a hefty price tag. Although comparison data lends to the pandemic being far less threatening in Mass. than Tex., contracting the virus is a painful reality for many college students across the United States.